JESSE POWELL writes:

There is a movement in the United States to bring about civil unions not just for homosexuals but for heterosexual couples too. It’s interesting to observe how this idea has been instituted in France and its effect on French society. France has not abolished marriage but it has done the next best thing, given couples the option of forming their own contractual relationships according to their own terms. France has created a legal relationship form called the “Civil Pact of Solidarity” in English, or PACS using the French acronym.

The Civil Pact of Solidarity was passed by the French National Assembly by a vote of 315 to 249 on October 13, 1999.  The Constitutional Council then ruled that it conformed to the Constitution on November 9, 1999.  The law was signed by President Jacques Chirac, the Prime Minister, and seven governmental ministers on November 15, 1999.

The content of the Civil Pact of Solidarity relationship “is a contract binding two adults of different sexes or of the same sex, in order to organize their common life; contractants may not be bound by another pact, by marriage, sibling or lineage.  Adults under custody cannot contract.”  In addition, “partners commit to mutual and material help; modalities of this help are specified by the common declaration.  They are jointly responsible for debts due to ordinary expenses for the household.”

From an article in the Washington Post, dated February 14, 2009, “Straight Couples in France Are Choosing Civil Unions Meant for Gays:”

“In recognition of the PACS’s growing popularity… a half-dozen French cities, skirting the terms of the law, have recently begun holding marriage like PACS ceremonies in the often ornate city hall rooms formerly reserved for weddings. Most of those cities are run by Socialist mayors. But Christian Estrosi, mayor of Nice and a close Sarkozy ally, also has put his city on the list, indicating rising acceptance of PACS unions even among political conservatives.”

“But PACS unions are also seen as more appealing than marriage because they can be dissolved without costly divorce procedures. If one or both of the partners declares in writing to the court that he or she wants out, the PACS is ended, with neither partner having claim to the other’s property or to alimony.”

“Daunis said he and Gharbi are together for the duration and plan to get married at some point, perhaps within a year, but could not afford the cost of a wedding yet. ‘This is a first step toward our marriage,’ he said, echoing Arnaud.

In that vein, government statistics show, one-sixth of PACSed couples that end their unions do so because they want to get married.”

France has given couples the alternative of marriage-lite if traditional marriage is too intimidating and too restrictive for them. The Civil Pact of Solidarity is becoming an increasingly popular option among heterosexual couples in France. The ratio of PACS to marriages as gone from .o52 in 2000 to .649. These civil unions comprise one facet of a profound deterioration in French family life since the 1960s. The out-of-wedlock ratio in France started consistently rising in 1965. Unmarried births that year were 5.9 percent of the total. They are now at 52 percent, exceeding the U.S. illegitimacy rate. The source for these figures can be found here.

In Metropolitan France, in 2005, 81.4 percent of all babies born in France were born to a French mother and a French father. Of these births, 50.5 percent were out-of-wedlock. Since the overall out-of-wedlock ratio for that year was 47.4 percent that means that France has the same pattern as Britain where the out-of-wedlock ratio is higher for the native born population than it is for the immigrant population of that nation. When both of the child’s parents were foreign the out-of-wedlock ratio was 22.7 percent, according to this source.

The total fertility rate in Metropolitan France in 2009 was 1.975 births per woman over her reproductive lifetime. The divorce rate has gone from 10 percent in 1965 to an astounding 50 percent in 2009. It is quite obvious the French family has undergone a radical deterioration in the past 45 years. It held together during two World Wars, but has not been able to sustain itself since.

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Clark Coleman writes:

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