Legal Response To Disputes Over Unmarried Cohabitation By The Elderly

But with the number of cohabitation increasing year by year,cohabitation,as a common phenomenon of new partnership,has been accepted by more and more people.Correspondingly,the number of disputes of unmarried cohabitation by the elderly has increased year by year.Since 2000,our country has stepped into the aging society.More and more widowed old people and old people living alone choose cohabitation to achieve the goal of "companionship" and avoid "marriage".But the disputes during the cohabitation should be paid attention to and studied.The phenomenon of unmarried cohabitation has a long history,and has experienced four stages: prohibition,limited approval,affirmation and legal protection.During the period of cohabitation,the relationship of status,property and child support are the main causes of disputes.Many countries explore the adoption of registration,contract or de facto status as the way to establish unmarried cohabitation relationships,and specify the rights and obligations of cohabitation parties in laws to establish the legal rules for cohabitation.Not all cohabitation life is plain sailing,cohabitation division disputes,inheritance disputes become the main types of cohabitation disputes in judicial practice.However,the "indifference" of the law of our country for the cohabitation system and the elderly’s simple legal concept and lack of legal knowledge have led to the elderly’s unfamiliarity with legal procedures and inadequate preparation of cohabitation evidentiary materials in the process of dispute resolution,in judicial practice,the methods of the court for handling disputes involving cohabitation relationship such as property distribution and identity relationship are often too simple,and even have certain drawbacks.As a result,the rights of the weak party in the cohabitation relationship of the elderly cannot be protected effectively.In our country,unmarried cohabitation system based on de facto partner model and contract model has some advantages.It can guarantee the parties’ autonomy of life style,and respect the cohabitation choice of the elderly.In terms of legislation,establish a legislative mode of unmarried cohabitation of the elderly that is suitable for our country,standardize the recognition standards for unmarried cohabitation relationship of the elderly,and refine the specific contents of the system of unmarried cohabitation of the elderly from three aspects of property ownership,personal relationship and relationship between parents and children;In the aspect of judicature,we should focus on the elderly cohabitation disputes,establish the principle that judges should take the evidence on their own initiative to achieve a reasonable distribution of burden of proof.During the trial of cases,the judges shall follow the principle of solving contradictions and maintaining the social justice,arrange judicial assistants to engage in psychological guidance and family mediation,make full use of the family mediation functions of the office of justice,and ensure the harmony and stability of family relations while correctly dealing with the disputes.