Polyunions, an alternative formway of coexistence in Colombia, outside the cultural and legal context

Abstract

Law 54 of 1990, recognized patrimonial rights to heterosexual couples who lived together under concubinage, whose way of life was reprehensible by a community with great religious roots. From this law they received the name of de facto marital union. Social evolution brought with it other forms of coexistence, such as, for example, the one that occurs between same-sex couples, they claimed the State for their recognition and the Court, in Judgment T-911/2009, ordered in their favor, the normative application in the sense of equity of Law 54 of 1990, regarding economic rights.

After the social and legal recognition that de facto unions between heterosexual and homosexual couples received, a social reality arises as an alternative of coexistence, “poly unions” represented in throuple or quad; they are stable unions which occur between people of the same or different sex presenting legal, patrimonial, and cultural consequences that neither the State nor society are prepared to face. In the development of this research, regulatory gaps were found that would undoubtedly affect the recognition of economic rights, by the State to those who cohabit under poly unions, likewise, it was necessary to compare the existing regulation in matters of the same-sex of different sex, related to the patrimonial regime; lastly, the regulations that rule relationships between couples of the same and different sex were determined so that it can be applied to poly unions. The purpose is to determine the regulation that provides greater equity stability to the relationships that arise from poly unions.