This Chapter evaluates two law reform initiatives in North America: the PRINCIPLES and the 2001 Canadian Law Commission's report entitled “Beyond Conjugality: Recognizing and Supporting Close Personal Relationships” (“Beyond Conjugality”). The PRINCIPLES move “away from the idea that there can be public standards guiding marriage and parenthood. Instead it says that the central purpose of family law should be to protect and promote family diversity.” In particular, the PRINCIPLES introduce rules pertaining to pre-marital agreements and domestic partnerships that undermine the very essence of marriage and present it as one of many equally valid family forms.

In this regard, the PRINCIPLES follow in the footsteps of Beyond Conjugality, which proposes a revolutionary reconstitution of family law that would make State marriage laws superfluous. Beyond Conjugality promotes a registration scheme for all close adult relationships, which would include, for example, a person with disabilities and her care giver. Beyond Conjugality describes “the possibility of removing the state from the marriage business” as “worthwhile.” It models the registration scheme on marriage providing elements of both contract and status and then opens up registration to numerous types of relationships which are promoted as equally worthy of protection and assistance from the State.

The chapter is divided into three parts. Part I briefly sets the groundwork for a comparative analysis of the PRINCIPLES and Beyond Conjugality.