Analysis provided by: Soraya Pascoe, Legal Expert on Gender.

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There is little distinction between male and female in family law which is governed generally by the Family Law Act 1996 and the Children Act 1989.

The legal age for marriage is 18 years old or 16 and above with the consent with the relevant parent or guardian. There is no legal obligation for a woman to change her family name to that of her spouse. Marriage under duress is void and maybe annulled by a legal application.

Co-habitees whether of a mixed sex or same sex have fewer rights and benefits than married couples. For example, married couples benefit from tax concessions. Also co-habitees have no automatic rights to succession on the death of their partner unlike married couples.

Co-habitees have less favourable treatment than married couples where the contact or residence of children is concerned. Although The Children's Act is aimed at enforcing the rights of the child to have access to the non-resident parent irrespective of gender or marital status, an unmarried father is not granted parental responsibility without formal application. Without this formality, his consent is not required should the mother wish to remove the child out of the country and in fact, a grant of parental responsibility can be revoked on an application to the Courts under the Children Act s4(3). However, formal application can be made by way of registering as the child's father under section 10 of the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, or re-registering under section 10 A of the Act. This is by a new measure, Section III of the Adoption and Children Act, 2002, which came into force on 1^stDecember 2003 amends s4 of the Children Act 1989 which legislates that unmarried fathers can only be granted parental responsibility by a formal application to the Court. This legal amendment applies only to children born since 1^stDecember 2003. For children born prior to that date, a formal application to Court is still necessary.

Where the amendment applies, a father can be joined automatically as a party to care proceedings and in accordance with the Family Rules of 1991, Appendix 3 and adoption proceedings in line with the Adoption Rules 1984, rules 4 and 15. Also he may remove the child from accommodation following s20(8) of the Children Act 1989.

Divorce law is contained within the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 and the Family Law Act 1996. It is within these two pieces of legislation that divorce procedure and property rights are found.  

In respect of property rights, co-habitees are at a legislative disadvantage with no specific provision for them. On separation, there is no legislation to protect ancillary relief, in other words, the financial aspects incidental to a relationship such as the shared property and co-habitees have to employ the law of trusts in trying to enforce rights to property. Likewise, section 30 of the Family Law Act 1996 only confers rights to spouses to occupy the matrimonial home. This means that while a married person is protected in law from being ousted from the matrimonial home on breakdown of the marriage and has rights, normally being accorded 50 per cent of the value of the shared property, the cohabitee in a similar situation has to prove how much financial input he or he has placed into the property whether it is direct finance or in kind by way of home improvement or housekeeping. This is then proportionately valued and can mean a former cohabitee may be granted in court far less than 50 per cent of the property share on breakdown.

Forced marriages while voidable in UK law have not been specifically legislated against. Instead the victim of a forced marriage must rely on the Matrimonial Causes Act which accounts for situations whereby a marriage may be voided by application to the court. While a forced marriage is not null or void from the outset, the party claiming that they entered into the marriage contract under duress may seek a legal annulment without going through the more complicated process of divorce although they then do not benefit from property rights accorded to parties in divorce proceedings. The Home Office has taken steps to address this issue via immigration controls and policing. The Governing association for police officers in the UK have published guidelines specifically to address this issue a marriage as an abuse of Human Rights. It lists a number of criminal acts which cover aspects of activities surrounding forced marriages from common assault to false imprisonment.

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