Common law wife...

How about a live in Domincan guy??

We see Cheryl W. talking about living with her Dominican boyfriend...what would be his rights or hers in the same situation??

There is no such thing as a "common law" wife in the Dominican Republic. Living together with a woman is never equivalent to a normal marriage.

However, certain provisions in the Labor Code, the Minors Code and the Criminal Code acknowledge that living together has legal consequences. For example, a worker has the right to a few days off work if his concubine gives birth to his child; domestic violence to a concubine is treated the same as domestic violence to a wife. Recently, on October 17, 2001, a Supreme Court decision gave a surviving concubine the right to sue for the wrongful death of her companion in an automobile accident under very restrictive conditions: a) the couple must have lived as if they were husband and wife, in a public relationship, not hidden or secret; b) the relationship must be stable and long-lasting; c) the relationship must be monogamous and non-adulterous since its origins ; and d) the couple should be of different sexes. The ruling goes on to say expressly that "marriage and extra matrimonial companionship are not . . equivalent realities?.

Warning to Common Wife junkies

Although our resident lawyer is right, I would recommend to our junkies to be wary of long term concubine relationships, specially longer than 3 years. Although it is not a law, the recent case by the Supreme Court raised many eyebrows and with the legal profession beginning to get smart about presenting new challenging cases to the Supreme Court, no one is safe anymore. Yours could be the next test case.

With the feminists getting a foothold in politics and government I predict the concubine law is not very far away, and in my opinion they will put a 3 year limit. That means that if you are not married with another woman and you live happily ever after for 3 years or more with a live-in girlfriend in a monogamous relationship and in addition commit the mortal sin of having children, be prepared. Might as well get married.

TW

Property....

I think what the main point of the question was really, that if you spilt up with a live-in girlfriend that you have lived with for more than 6 months, or for any length of time for that matter, is she entitled to 50% or any portion of your household property?

Other than her own person things of course, I have heard horror stories of guys that live with girl for a 6 month to a year, and then they split up and when the girl leaves, up comes the truck and they take almost everything, including many assits that were purchase long before the were together, like computers, TV?s, stereo?s, and most of the furniture, etc.

What is the legal story here?


JCF

No, she has no legal rights over property belonging to her companion. Golo's warning is appropriate though. The law as it stands today gives no property rights to the concubine; however, you cannot guarantee that courts will not adopt in the future a doctrine allowing division of "companionship" assets...or that Congress will not pass new legislation providing for division of assets.

what is a concubine?

Concubine.....

A woman who lives in the household of a male to whom she is not married, however she performs all the duties of a wife without any of the rights. Another word for a "sex" slave many of whom also must to menial work for their food,housing etc.

In the DR the one i am familar with are provided a seperate house from the first wife. Often they are treated better than the first wife, and have hired maids, and a better house...

Shad.....

That would be a "mistress"!!!

In english, you may be correct, but last i checked are known as concubines there...

Will one of the locals please clarify this?

I believe MommC is correct, a concubine is not a mistress. It's the same in Spanish. "Vivir en concubinato" is a common expression meaning common law marriage. Some people mistankely use the expression "concubina" for "amante".

Thanks PIB!

I like to consider myself a "local" when I'm here (especially after all these yrs.) even though I'm not Dominican. Much of the "root" language of English is Latin (which I studied briefly 38 ys ago in school) and I know in Italian there are two distinct words for concubine (meaning common law wife) and mistress (meaning "kept" woman).

English roots are NOT Latin MommC

English as it has evolved through the centuries is a wonderful example of diffusion and evolution. But, the roots of English are Germanic not Latin. See the following webpage for a nice synthesis of English language evolution.

http://www.krysstal.com/english.html

While concubine versus mistress might be words adopted from the romance languages, the basic syntax and grammatical structure of English is closely related to Germanic linguistic traditions.
By the way, the Arawak languages (Tainos spoke an Arawak language) have given English, via Spanish, words such as canoe, hurricane, and barbecue.

From Webster's English Dictionary:

Concubinage: The act or practice of cohabiting as man and wife, without a legal marriage; the state of being a concubine.

Concubine: A woman who cohabits with a man without being legally married to him; a kept mistress.

I know I am too mean to be your queen
And yet too good to be your concubine. Shakespeare.


Del Diccionario de la Real Academia Espa?ola:

Concubinato. (Del lat. concubinātus). m. Relaci?n marital de un hombre con una mujer sin estar casados.

In the Dominican Republic, the term for a kept mistress is usually "querida" ("Tiene una querida instalada en Arroyo Hondo!")

By the way, Tgb, my Latin teacher in Canada used to tell students the first day of class that 70% of all English words ultimately came from Latin counting of course all the long words that nobody knows about or uses.

Fabio

Funny Fabio, my German teacher always told me that 70% of English words came from German. Haus, maus, der, die, das, etc, all the simple non-refined words of daily usage. Also, my linguistic professor always said that you can't learn a language from a dictionary (i.e., you have to know the syntax and grammatical structures that hold the "words" together). Being a lawyer you are most likely to deal with a lot more Latin than the average person. Tell you what, you find your old Latin teacher and I'll find my old German teacher, we'll arm them with English language dictionaries and put them in a boxing ring. Last one standing wins!!!

Latin vs German

Interesting website Tgf ......while it is generally recognized that English grammer and conjuctives derive mainly from Germanic sources I find that most usage is from Latin Root.....Science,Math,Medicine,Legal.
Also if you read well the site you gave you will see that the beginnings of the language established in the 5th century AD. However the Romans were in England as early as 55BC in the time of Julius Ceasar- the Roman language being Latin. Also many of the later languages that added to the English language as stated on the website were Greek,Spanish,Italian,Portuguese,French and Latin - with the first five being Latin Based languages.
We all know that English is a conglomeration of many different languages and while grammatically different from latin based language the majority of it is derived from those languages. Even a lot of the "new" words coined daily to keep up with technological and scientific advance still have their root in Latin.
Check out this site:
http://www.britainexpress.com/History/Roman_invasion.htm

Yes, a "querida" is a kept mistress, but it also means that the man also has a legal wife or a common law wife. The "concubina" is assumed to be the woman that holds the status of wife without a legal marriage.

I have a question for Fabio, this is being bugging me for months after the Supreme Court's decision. I had a secretary whose mother is not married to her father, her mother is 55, he is 85. He being a good catholic refused to divorce the stranged wife and went to live with my friend's mother. They have been together for over 31 years and he has no relation to the legal wife and never had after the separation, except that they had 2 children. They even live in different towns. When the man dies, who's going to be recognized as "wife" for inheritance purposes? The legal wife? The common law wife? Both?

I know, things can get pretty weird in this island...

Ah, and by the way, all I needed to know about the history of England I learnt in Asterix and Obelix.

I think our confusion lies in the term "root." I was talking about the basic structures of the English language. You are talking about the number of "words" in the English language that can be traced back to Latin origins. However, why stop there? After all, the Romans were great borrowers in their own right. They adopted many words from Greek and other peoples as well. After all, both Latin and ancient Germanic languages are of Indo-European origins.

As for the Roman conquest of Britain and its influence on old English, it wasn't an issue. The Britains under Rome were speakers of Celtic and Gaelic languages - very different languages from English. The vast majority of commoners in that period spoke no Latin, only the elites. (The same after 1066 A.D. with the Norman conquest - the nobility and landed class spoke French and English, the commoners only English). The modern Welsh language is a descendant of that period - not modern English. The Romans left and it wasn't for another one hundred years before the Angles and Saxons began to permanently settle parts of England. They pushed the Britains back to what is now Wales and Cornwall.

As for usage, what do you mean by that? Words used ever. Or, words used on a daily basis by number of times used. Most medical, legal, and technical words are used by a very small minority of people only some of the time. Most mathematical terms are not Latin, but Greek, with a smattering of Arabic. The vast majority of people use less than 2,000 words in their vocabulary. If we looked at words used by native English speaking individuals on a daily basis, I bet the mother lode that by far the majority would be of Germanic origin. Words like house, the, mother, father, is, and so on. The most common verb in English (to be) has its "roots" I am, you are, he/she/it is, in Old High German. So, total number of words in the dictionary might indicate more reliance on Latin origins, but the grammatical structure and the basis for stringing English together, and the number of words used most frequently CLEARLY fall in the Germanic- English camp.

Anyway, how's everyone's Latin? My favorite phrase: Illegitimi non carbonundum.