CONSENSUAL UNIONS OF ADOLESCENTS: PROBLEMS OF FAMILY LAW RELATIONSHIPS

Abstract

Family law relationships established in the mexican legal system derive from marriage, kinship, cohabitation and domestic partnership. The way in which federal tribunals guarantee family rights of empirical consensual unions, that is, unions which have not been acknowledged in legislation, is by adjusting them to cohabitation through judge-made-law. Civil law prohibits marriage and cohabitation for minors under 18 years of age, which does not impede that if they have the minimum legal age for sexual consent, they can start a family through a consensual union. The problem is that in this type of union it is impossible to make that adaptation since those children do not have the exercise capacity to act and give rise to family law relationships of personal and patrimonial nature. It is proposed that the alledged union can be the cause for them to obtain the civil status of emancipated minor, which would allow federal tribunals to adapt through interpretation to the extent the law may allow, cohabitation rights and obligations.