Toward a New Taxonomy

The previous nine chapters described a model in decline: historically invented, biologically mismatched, statistically shrinking, and legally rigid. This chapter asks a different question. If marriage is no longer the only legitimate form of intimate commitment, what should the alternatives look like?

The answer is not abolition. Abolishing an institution that still works for millions would be neither realistic nor just. The real direction is de-monopolization — demoting marriage from "the only legally recognized form of intimate partnership" to "one form among many." The Research Handbook on Marriage, Cohabitation and the Law makes precisely this argument: contributors "argue against imposing a particular view of what marriage should be, showcasing the importance of a diverse range of views and perspectives on the topic." The goal is not to replace one orthodoxy with another, but to create legal space for the diversity of ways people actually structure their intimate lives.

This is not utopian speculation. It is already happening — often in legal gray zones, sometimes through creative workarounds, and increasingly through grassroots pressure on outdated laws.

Queerplatonic Partnerships: Love Without Romance

The term "queerplatonic relationship" (QPR) emerged from asexual and aromantic online communities in the early 2010s and has since grown sharply in visibility (OkCupid reported a 50% increase in the use of the word "queerplatonic" in user profiles between 2021 and 2022 — a single platform's data, but indicative of a broader cultural shift). The concept describes an intense, committed partnership that does not involve sex or romance — "not friendship, not dating, but a secret third thing," as one community writer put it.

What makes QPRs legally significant is not their emotional intensity. It is that they expose the arbitrary nature of tying social benefits to conjugal relationships. As legal scholars have argued, the state's purported justification for granting benefits only to married couples — that marriage uniquely promotes family cohesion and social prosperity — is not supported by causal evidence. Existing research finds overlapping neurobiological systems across long-term intimate relationships of different kinds; the evidence does not establish that marital relationships are causally or uniquely "better" than other committed relationships.

If the purpose of legal recognition is to support caregiving relationships that stabilize society, then the form of the relationship — sexual, romantic, platonic, familial — is irrelevant. What matters is the function: mutual care, shared resources, emotional and practical interdependence.

Adult Adoption: A Desperate Workaround

South Korea offers a stark example of what happens when the law fails to recognize non-conjugal commitment.

As widely reported in 2023, Eun Seo-ran, then 47, had lived with her friend Lee for more than five years. They shared a home, owned property together, and cared for each other through illness. But when Eun needed emergency medical care, Lee could not act as her legal guardian. Under South Korean law, they were strangers.

Eun's solution was radical — and rare: she legally adopted her friend. Because Eun was older, she became Lee's adoptive mother, and Lee became her daughter. The process took one day. Under Article 866 of the Civil Act, adult adoption requires only a filing — no court review, no judicial oversight. Within twenty-four hours, two friends became legal parent and child.

Eun documented the experience in a book titled I Adopted My Friend. Her explanation is devastating in its simplicity: "We had effectively been each other's caregivers, but when something urgent or important happened, such as going to the emergency room, we were still strangers under the law. I began to worry about who would be my legal guardian if I grew old and sick, since I had no plans to marry or have children."

The adoption gave them what marriage would have provided automatically: health insurance dependency, inheritance rights, medical decision-making authority, the ability to organize a funeral. But it also required them to misrepresent their relationship as parent and child — a legal fiction that bears no resemblance to their actual bond.

South Korea's "Life Partnership Act," first introduced in 2023 by Representative Yong Hye-in, would allow two consenting adults to establish a legally recognized family relationship without marriage. It has not passed the National Assembly. Conservative and Christian groups oppose it, arguing it would effectively legalize same-sex marriage.

The Argument for Functional Recognition

The Korean case illustrates a broader principle: the law currently recognizes relationships based on their form (marriage, blood, adoption) rather than their function (caregiving, mutual support, shared life).

Legal scholars have advanced several arguments for recognizing non-conjugal unions — relationships between committed friends or relatives that lack a sexual component. These arguments range from the practical (people need legal tools to protect their chosen families) to the philosophical (the state should not privilege one form of love over another).

The Research Handbook includes a chapter on "Non-conjugal adult unions in family law," examining how different jurisdictions have begun to address this gap. The trend is clear: as more people live outside traditional family structures, the law is under growing pressure to adapt. The question is how long the adaptation will take and how much suffering will occur in the interim.

What a New Taxonomy Might Look Like

If we take the principle of functional recognition seriously, several implications follow:

Multiple legal forms, not one. Instead of a single marital status, the law could offer a menu of opt-in regimes: marriage, registered partnership, cohabitation agreements, caregiving contracts, and non-conjugal family recognition. Each would confer a defined set of rights and obligations. People could choose the form that matches their actual relationship.

Care as the organizing principle. The state has a legitimate interest in supporting relationships that provide care — whether that care is sexual, emotional, practical, or financial. Tying benefits to marriage arbitrarily excludes the growing number of people who provide care outside that structure.

Decoupling rights from conjugality. Inheritance, medical decision-making, tax benefits, and pension rights should not depend on whether a relationship is sexual. They should depend on whether it is committed, interdependent, and functionally equivalent to what marriage provides.

Room for evolution. Relationships change. A couple might start as romantic partners and become platonic co-parents. Two friends might become caregivers for each other in old age. The law should allow relationships to evolve without forcing people to dissolve one legal status and create another.

The Resistance

None of this will be easy. Defenders of the marriage monopoly raise real arguments: that marriage correlates with child well-being and economic stability, that its legal clarity protects vulnerable spouses, that redefining it risks unintended consequences. These deserve engagement, not dismissal. But correlation is not causation, and the question here is not whether marriage is good — it is whether it should be the only recognized form. The repeated Polish defeats of even minimal cohabition-rights legislation showed how fiercely that monopoly is defended. The Korean Life Partnership Act remains stalled. In most jurisdictions, the legal infrastructure for non-conjugal recognition simply does not exist.

But the pressure is building. Single-person households now account for more than a third of all households in South Korea, and are projected to keep rising. Cohabitation without marriage is the norm for younger generations across much of the developed world. The gap between how people live and how the law recognizes them is widening, and that gap produces real harm: people denied hospital visitation, inheritance, and the ability to care for the person they love.

The new taxonomy is not a fantasy. It is, increasingly, a necessity. The only question is whether it will be built deliberately, through reform, or chaotically, through individual workarounds like Eun's adoption. The former is preferable. The latter is already happening.

Further Reading

• Research Handbook on Marriage, Cohabitation and the Law — on the legal treatment of non-traditional unions.
• Scholarly analysis — on non-conjugal unions.
• Reporting on South Korea's adult adoption cases (2023).
• The Life Partnership Act introduced by Rep. Yong Hye-in.
• OkCupid's published platform data.