ABSTRACT
Over the last 15 years the trend set by the Netherlands (following Denmark, Norway and Sweden) in 1998 with the introduction of registered partnership and in 2001, with the opening up of marriage for same-sex couples, has been followed by a growing number of jurisdictions. 1 Meanwhile, the status of marriage not only altered as a result of the movement towards equal rights for same-sex couples, but also by the growing number of non-marital cohabitants. As a result of these changes, the position of marriage has been profoundly changed. The Netherlands, therefore, provides a good case study of a jurisdiction which has moved to a strongly diversifi ed system of models for interpersonal relationships.
