DIX­IE-ANN DICK­SON

Com­mon-law re­la­tion­ships have be­come a grow­ing phe­nom­e­non. In to­day's so­ci­ety, it is the pre­ferred choice by many–a com­fort­able ex­is­tence be­fore get­ting mar­ried. In T&T, it is by far the norm, but it has im­pli­ca­tions for fam­i­ly life, ac­cord­ing to some of our re­li­gious lead­ers. "Com­mon-law re­la­tion­ships have be­come the trend in T&T," said Pas­tor Clive Dot­tin, dur­ing an in­ter­view. Dot­tin said he ob­served this through his com­mu­ni­ty pro­grammes, as many cou­ples opt­ed for this type of union. As a re­sult, Dot­tin said, the tra­di­tion­al fam­i­ly unit was be­ing de­stroyed. "This was a dan­ger­ous trend for the so­ci­ety," he added.

A con­cerned Dot­tin al­so not­ed that young peo­ple were "shack­ing up" and "on­ly when a child comes in­to the pic­ture, then the top­ic of mar­riage was dis­cussed." He said in a sit­u­a­tion like this, one par­ty, in most cas­es the man, feels pres­sured or forced in­to mar­riage. Dot­tin said this was a se­ri­ous mat­ter be­cause the cou­ple might not be ready for that kind of com­mit­ment. "I think we have a cri­sis on our hands and it should not be tak­en light­ly," he said. "If the fam­i­ly was viewed as the so­lu­tion to the so­cial ills that were plagu­ing the so­ci­ety, then there should be a cause for an alarm," said Dot­tin. He said the fam­i­ly was the fun­da­men­tal pil­lar of the so­ci­ety and urged par­ents to make more time for fam­i­ly life.

A tri­al pe­ri­od

How­ev­er, Archdea­con Steve West said: "Cou­ples use com­mon-law unions as a tri­al pe­ri­od for mar­riage, but this was not a safe prac­tice." "Some peo­ple mis­tak­en­ly be­lieve that they must have a tri­al pe­ri­od through com­mon-law unions," he said. He said in ad­di­tion to le­gal im­pli­ca­tions, mar­riage re­quired a greater com­mit­ment. "The dy­nam­ics change when cou­ples get mar­ried and cou­ples must be pre­pared to deal with the new dy­nam­ics of that re­la­tion­ship," West said. He said some cou­ples got mar­ried af­ter "shack­ing up" and some did not. West said there was a de­cline in wed­dings over the years at his church. But, he said, for this year so far he of­fi­ci­at­ed over 27 wed­dings.

How­ev­er, af­ter speak­ing with some cou­ples, they ex­pressed dif­fer­ent views. Ria, not her re­al name, said de­spite what the "old folks" be­lieved she felt it had be­come im­por­tant to have that tri­al pe­ri­od. She said even though two peo­ple might "court" each oth­er for a pe­ri­od of time, they still may not know each oth­er faults or bad habits. In Natasha's case (not her re­al name), she mar­ried her hus­band af­ter court­ing him for eight years and has just re­alised the type of per­son he was. Natasha said prob­a­bly if they had a tri­al pe­ri­od her hus­band's re­al per­son­al­i­ty would have been re­vealed ear­li­er.