Definition of Terms Used

We define these terms in the following ways:

A Civil Partnership

- A civil partnership gives legal recognition to a relationship between two people of the same-sex and opposite-sex couples who are not related.

Dissolution

- The legal termination of a civil partnership

Divorce

- The legal termination of a marriage

Cohabitees

- People who live together as a couple without being married or having a civil partnership.

Someone who has Parental Responsibility: -

1. A child’s mother and father, if they are married when the child was born
2. An unmarried mother
3. An unmarried father whose name appears on the birth certificate of a child born from the 1st of December 2003
4. Anyone who has a parental responsibility agreement or a parental responsibility order