The Possible Ways of Regulation of Unregistered Marital Relations in Russian Law

E.M. Ivashko The Possible Ways of Regulation of Unregistered Marital Relations in Russian Law The graduate paper is aimed at investigating of the current status of the actual marriages in Russian Federation and working out the possible ways of their legal regulation. The main objectives of the paper are: (a) investigating the historical aspect of legal regulation of de facto marital relations; (b) forming the term “actual marriage”, determining its subjects and features; (c) exploring the questions linked with the possible regulation of property relations and personal relations in actual marriages, the ways of the official beginning and ending of de facto marital relations; (d) suggesting the possible ways and recommendations about changes in the sphere of legal regulation of these relations. Based on this research the following conclusions were made: firstly, actual marriage can be defined as a special form of the family-legal institute; secondly, the spreading of the actual marriages determines the necessity of its legal regulation with the aim of providing with the rights and interests of their participants; thirdly, the main ways of regulation of actual marriages (if they are acknowledged by law) can be the special form of agreement between their participants or recognition by court; fourthly, for the protection of the rights of actual spouses it seems necessary to provide for them (1) a possibility of being the legal heir, (2) principles of the presumption of paternity; fifthly, it seems possible to regulate the certain personal non-property relations of the actual spouses by their agreement. Academic supervisor: Maria Matveeva, S.J.C. (National Research University “The Higher School of Economics”), Senior Lecturer of the Department of Civil and Business Law, Faculty of Law, National Research University “The Higher School of Economics”