The family in Mexican law

1. The Family

«The family exists as long as the man exists.

Sexual attraction and love, origin of the marriage bond, find in the family the institutional channel by which individuals are integrated into society. Procreation, within the family structure, acquires an affective character that makes the upbringing and intellectual development of human beings possible.

What is known is that it begins with a clearly patriarchal family in the Middle East, with less authority for the father of the family in Greece and Rome, and with even less in the peoples of America, without in any known people, the father stop being the head of the family. The nuance of the exaggerated or diminished patriarchy is given by the greater or lesser consideration that women are given and therefore, by the greater or lesser importance that is given to monogamous marriage.

This confirms what reason tells us: that the family and marriage are two natural institutions, in the sense that they derive from human nature and therefore have been present since the human being exists on earth and will continue to exist as long as there is individuals who participate in our nature.

This primitive historical family is very broad because in some way it performs the functions that the city authorities and later the State authorities will carry out a little later; because it is often in itself a complete unit of agricultural and livestock production; because it needs to defend itself from other rival groups, etc. You enter the family by the same procedures that are later used to become part of the political community: by birth, by express admission to the group or by marriage.

The family, therefore, ceded its political functions to the municipal authorities, which were gradually replacing some of those originally performed. This contributed to gradually reducing the number of members of the family to give more and more importance to blood kinship.

A common type of domestic family consists of an adult man, his wife, and unmarried children. This "nuclear" family cannot, however, be considered universal, since there is no society in which there are only families of this type. On the one hand, many households have elements outside this scheme, such as grandparents, widows, orphans and single mothers; on the other hand, there may be married children who are part of the family with their parents, in such a way that three or four generations coexist in the same household, when successive marriages have taken place at an early age. Consequently, family composition is largely determined by whether a new marriage is established in a new home or continues to be a member of an existing one, occupied by the relatives of one of the new spouses.

Different names are also used to designate the different types of non-nuclear family. A "scion" family is one generated by the rule that only one child remains in the parental home after marriage; This type of family occurs in some rural regions of Europe and in Japan, and its function is that there is a family within the home that can support their parents and children, but not a larger group, in line with the possibilities of the agricultural environment in which they live.

Another type of family is the "extended" family, which allows several or all children to continue to reside in the parental home after marriage. In primitive societies, the predominant family organization is the so-called "great family," a large parental group living under the same roof, generally linked by patrilineal relationships (inheritance is transmitted through the paternal line). "

Background and characteristics of the modern family

“The increasing proportion of women who work outside the home has meant that, from an early age, children spend much of the time in childcare or other family members. From another angle, the laxity of traditional moral norms, with the permissiveness of abortion, the generalization of divorce or simple de facto separation, has also contributed to weaken the traditional conception of the family institution. The Catholic doctrine, according to which the family is an institution of natural law, has been repeatedly questioned by those who advocate a new type of family relationship.

However, despite the real and profound transformation of family schemes, the essential structure of the family continues to be valid, since it constitutes, in its different forms, the foundation of all human society and it is within it that ties are created. affective factors essential to transmit culture and ideological and moral values from one generation to another. "

“Over the centuries, and according to different cultures and civilizations, the patriarchal family has prevailed, led by the oldest male in the group. The family of classical Rome was of this type, and in it two domestic groups were distinguished: the largest, the gens, composed of various independent branches, and the family in the proper sense. In it, the father exercised absolute power, although limited to some extent depending on whether it was exercised over the wife, over the children - the "parental authority" - over the slaves or over the servants. Germanic law also distinguished between the family proper and the broader family circle, the line, the belonging to the family was more determined by the authority to which it was subjected than by blood ties. "

The family as a natural institution

“The legitimate family is a natural society, that is, it is not an institution created by man or by the State; it is prior to the entire legal order and is an institution that gives reason for being to Law. State and Family are the two natural institutions necessary for orderly human coexistence.

In this regard, there are two main currents, those who think that the family is the antecedent of the state and those who think that the state and the family are two natural institutions, which are independent of each other in terms of their birth.

"The family was formed with the first human couple and will accompany Humanity as long as it exists."

2. Kinship

Types and degrees of kinship

«It is the relationship that exists between the members of the same Family.

Marriage originates in principle a conjugal relationship between the contracting parties, a kinship relationship between the descendants and an affinity relationship between the consanguineous of one spouse with the other.

In Mexican civil law, there are the three traditional types of kinship:

Consanguinity

Affinity

Civil

Article 293 correctly defines consanguinity relationship by establishing that it is the one that exists between people who are descended from the same parent. It can be measured in an ascending or descending straight line and in a collateral line. Each generation forms a degree.

The kinship by affinity is the one established between the spouse and the blood relatives of the spouse. It admits the same degrees and is measured in the same way as consanguineous.

Civil kinship, as the Code calls it, is that which arises from the adoption and only exists between the adopter and the adoptee. "

The Right to Food in the Family

"The right to food is derived from kinship, and its foundation is the right to life that everyone in need has. For this right to exist, three requirements must be met: first, there must be a need in the creditor; secondly, a possibility in the debtor who must give them, and finally a relationship between the two. In such a way that if there is no need, possibility or kinship, the right to maintenance cannot arise.

The purpose of the right to food is to assure the needy relative as much as he needs for his maintenance or subsistence.

It is a conditional and variable right. It is conditional, since it is only owed if the need exists and subsists in the creditor, and if the possibility of the debtor exists and subsists; it also ends when the alimony debtor is no longer able to provide food.

It is an alternative obligation. According to article 309 of the Civil Code "the person obliged to provide maintenance fulfills the obligation assigned a competent pension to the maintenance creditor or incorporating him into the family.

It is a right and a reciprocal obligation. In other words, "He who gives them in turn has the right to ask for them."

It is a personal and non-transferable obligation.

There is no compensation.

There are no transactions.

It requires a judicial declaration.

It is not extinguished to be fulfilled if the need remains.

Past pensions expire.

The right to maintenance includes "food, clothing, room and assistance in cases of illness".

The obligation to provide maintenance ends when the need of the creditor or the possibility of the debtor ends or due to improper conduct of the creditor.

It also ends, in the case of children, when they reach the age of majority. "

3. Marriage

«It is the exclusive attribute of natural persons (because the legal person cannot beget, be married, etc.) which defines the rights and obligations that exist in the family and in kinship relationships.

By marital status it is determined whether a person is married or single, if they have an obligation to feed others, etc. When there is a rupture of the marriage bond due to divorce, it cannot be said that the marital status of the two people is "divorced" but simply single, because the dissolution of the marriage bond has placed them in the capacity to contract a new marriage.

The marital status is verified with the respective birth certificate or with the marriage certificate or with the divorce decree that ends in a marriage bond. "

Matrimonial law

Family Law, made up of the set of rules that deals with marriage as a legal phenomenon and institution in all its aspects. The main issues it deals with are: marriage -requirements, form of celebration, classes-, rights and duties of the spouses -respect, mutual aid, fidelity, coexistence-, nullity, separation and dissolution of the marriage; marital economic regime: general rules, types of matrimonial regimes, management and administration of the same, assets that comprise them, charges and obligations and dissolution.

Marriage

It is the stable union between man and woman, agreed in accordance with the law, regulated and ordered to the creation of a family. It is not a technical creation of law, but a natural institution that the legal system regulates in the interest of society.

The following are characteristics of marriage according to the current conception in civilized countries: a) to constitute a habitual bond with a vocation of permanence, directed, for its own purpose, to the coexistence and collaboration of the spouses in a home, forming a family in whose womb they will be born and children will be raised if any, and b) result from a bilateral legal act held at a specific time: the wedding. This act is regulated, solemnly, by law as the exclusive creator of the bond recognized by the State.

There is in the discipline of marriage, highly influenced by the contribution of Christianity to the legal culture, a double aspect: that of the celebration as an act (exchange of consents in legal form) because of which the status of spouse is born; and that of the civil status created, a situation of indefinite duration produced by the manifestation of such will.

The current model of marriage, in which the bond comes from an agreement of wills, cannot be dissolved without legal cause established by judicial means.

In order to prove that they meet the conditions for marriage, the contracting parties must urge before the court or recognized ecclesiastical authority, in the systems in which various forms of celebration with civil efficacy are accepted, with jurisdiction for this purpose, the formation of the appropriate file., in the course of which your intention to marry is published.

Civil marriage is authorized by the judge in charge of the civil registry of the domicile of either of the contracting parties, or by the mayor in the presence of two witnesses of legal age.

The fundamental thing about the celebration of marriage is the manifestation of the reciprocal consent of the contracting parties. Said manifestation can be made through a representative (marriage 'by proxy') but provided that the power of attorney is granted to contract with a specific person, so that the representative is limited to being the spokesperson for a fully formed will of another.

It is considered null, whatever the form of its celebration, the marriage celebrated without marital consent, an expression that refers to the simulated marriage by agreement of both parties: for example, to acquire nationality by concession or a tenant right, or to lower the inheritance tax. Marriages between people for whom there is a non-dispensable impediment are also void.

Although the marriage produces civil effects from its celebration, however, for the full recognition of the same, it will be necessary to register them in the Civil Registry, be it the one practiced by the judge in the book itself when authorizing the marriage, or by transcribing an intermediate document: the corresponding certificate or certification.

“Marriage is considered to be the contract between a man and a woman by which the children she has are recognized as the legitimate offspring of the couple. This definition, although extremely general, has, however, some exceptions dictated by anthropological, historical, legal considerations, etc. Marriage is a social phenomenon that has occurred in practically all cultures and in all known historical periods. His explanation primarily concerns cultural anthropology, since even in contemporary times its modalities, its interpretations and its relevance in the social body are multiple.

Marriage is a phenomenon that is always linked to a certain culture. Although throughout history it has adopted very different forms, in modern societies a certain modality predominates, characterized by the union of a couple formed by free choice, tending to be stable, closed, recognized and legally protected.

In all its forms, we can identify various components in marriage: its formation or constitution, its relationship with the incest taboo and with exogamous rules, its monogamous or polygamic character, the relationship between heritage and property ownership, the consideration of adultery, the legitimation of the children and the dissolution of the marriage bond. "

“In practically all societies, the establishment of the marriage bond takes the form of a coexistence agreement, sanctioned by the community, according to which the couple is obliged to respect certain rights and fulfill various duties. In some societies, the marriage agreement binds not only the couple, but the family in a broad sense.

In societies where individuals - especially women - are given the possibility of freely choosing their partner, marriage is preceded by various courtship activities, the unwritten rules of which are scrupulously respected. However, this individual freedom has not been recognized in all ages. In the Indo-Indian peninsula and in some countries of the Near East, marriages are arranged between families during childhood and it is common for the bride and groom to meet on the wedding day. In all cultures, this day is considered an important holiday, the celebration of which carries considerable costs. It usually includes some special ceremony, of a religious or civil nature, that signals the change of legal status of the contracting parties. "

Elements of marriage

In order for marriage to exist, a man and a woman are needed first or are subjects. All men have the right to marry and are naturally capable of marrying since they have passed puberty and have sufficient discernment to marry.

The will of the contracting parties that forms the matrimonial consent must be free from defects.

Subjects are all men and women from the moment they can beget children, which is possible from puberty

Consent. Marriage can only be formed by the free will of the parties. The right to marriage and the right to freely choose a spouse are of natural law.

If these requirements are not met, the marriage will not be able to be celebrated and if for some reason it is not carried out, it will be void since they were impediments to its celebration.

4. THE DIVORCE

Historical background and rationale

Divorce was introduced into Mexican civil law, by decree of December 29, 1914 published on January 2, 1915 in El Constitucionalista, the official newspaper of the federation that was published in Veracruz, then headquarters of the First Chief of the Constitutionalist Army. In that decree, fraction IX of Art. 23 of the Law of December 14, 1874, regulating the additions and reforms of the Federal Constitution decreed on December 25, 1873, was modified.

Our modern society only has to prove that the marriage has failed to declare it dissolved, and that test does not require that both spouses accept it (divorce by mutual consent), it is enough that one only declares that the harmony has been broken.

Divorce in the current Civil Code

Our country, as we have already indicated, did not follow the historical process that has been frequent in other nations. He entered fully, with surprise, without prior notice, in a fully divorce legislation that suddenly admitted sanctioned divorce, remedial divorce and divorce by mutual consent. Our divorce legislation was from the outset especially broad and liberal for divorce cases.

We can divide the different divorces that Mexican civil law admits according to different criteria; from the point of view of the authority before which they are processed, there may be a judicial or administrative divorce; from the point of view of the causes that originate it, there may be a necessary divorce or voluntary divorce. As the administrative divorce is always voluntary, we can in turn subdivide it into judicial and administrative, always judicial being necessary.

The domicile of both during the process (Section III), since from the presentation of the claim, they are not obliged to live together;

The way in which they will cover alimony to one of them, if applicable (Section IV); and

The administration of the conjugal partnership and its liquidation if the divorce is obtained.

If there is no agreement on all these points, the voluntary divorce does not proceed.

This type of divorce, also called divorce without cause, since none must be adduced to request it, it cannot be requested until one year after the marriage has been celebrated. Curious disposition, since all the arguments given for the acceptance of divorce can operate both in the first year of marriage and in subsequent years.

Effects of divorce in relation to children

During the divorce procedure, the children remain in the custody of the person that the divorcing parties have agreed upon (Art. 273, Section I, for voluntary divorces and Section VI of 282 for causes) or of whoever the Judge indicates (Art. 282 Section VI in fine). If the children are under seven years of age, they will be in the care of the mother, except for serious danger to the children, as indicated in the second paragraph of the Frac. VI of Art. 282, recently added and which rectifies falsely feminist attitudes of the 1972 reforms.

The divorce judgment will establish the situation of the children in accordance with what is indicated in Art. 283, which, in the new wording of 1984, grants powers to the Judge to resolve everything related to the legal situation of the children: you can be sentenced to one or both of the divorcing parties to lose parental authority, or to be suspended, without this implying that they are waived from the obligation to feed them, since this derives from filiation, and not from the marriage that no longer exists.

The obligation to nurture it ends when the child comes of age, unless the latter is in a state of need (Arts. 287 in fine and 311).

The so-called right of visit is the object of study in recent legal dogmatics. Although it is not restricted only to the children of divorced persons, it is in relation to them that it occurs most frequently and in its most acute and problematic forms and therefore, its inclusion in this section seems correct.

The expression right to visit is not entirely adequate because it is insufficient, but it has taken on a nature and is how this series of legal relationships is known today that foreign jurisprudence -especially French has been extending more and more hypotheses. diverse, but always related to the desire of a parent or a close relative to be related to their minor child or relative, with whom, for any circumstance, they do not live.

Effects of divorce in relation to the spouses.

The sentence to the payment of a pension, at the expense of the guilty, may therefore not occur if the judge does not consider it appropriate and the guilty may also be sentenced "to the payment of maintenance", even if the innocent is not in a state of need, since this pension is not owed to subsist, but rather is a sanction for their guilt in the divorce, which the judge can reduce or even eliminate by virtue of the wide margin of decision that the first paragraph of Art. 288 grants.

In those divorces for cause in which there are no guilty and therefore innocent, no spouse can be sentenced to pay pensions. It is the assumption of the causes in which the divorce will is of either of the spouses mediating an objective cause or without an objective cause, which we have previously classified in the last two groups of divorce causes.

Both in the abandonment of the marital home without just cause for more than six months, and when the cause is based on the justified separation for more than one year, in both situations, if the separation was motivated by mutual agreement between the spouses to live apart, and subsequently the culprit has not been required to return to the marital home, there is no abandonment of home and neither of the two causes can be configured.

The separation of bodies without breaking the bond

The current Code, following in this the Family Relations Law of 1917, which in turn was inspired by the Carranza Decree of 1915 that introduced divorce in Mexico, does not legislate on the possible temporary or definitive separation of the spouses, without break the bond. The Family Relations Law takes almost all the legislation of the 1884 Code relative to divorce (mere separation in that Code), giving it the effect of dissolving the bond and thus leaves no room for the sole separation, since this, in the new legislation has been superseded by divorce.

This is how it was understood at first by the jurisprudence that did not grant any effect to the temporary separation agreement made by the spouses, considering that such a pact violated Art. 182 of the Civil Code for going against the "natural purposes of marriage" and consequently it forced the spouses to live together or to divorce. The separation of the conjugal home, even by virtue of a pact between the spouses, as this was contrary to the law, gave rise to requesting a divorce after six months by the spouse who remained in the home, in accordance with Section VIII of Art. 267, or a year, by the spouse who left the home, in accordance with Frac. IX of the same article.

The arguments that were adduced to exclude the institute from separation appear clearly from the explanatory memorandum of the Carranza Decree and are specified in these:

a) The simple separation creates an irregular situation worse than the marital disagreement since it encourages discord in the family, hurts the parental-child affections and extends the demoralization of society.

b) The sole separation is contrary to nature to condemn the spouses to unwanted celibacy.

c) Separation damages the right of every human being to seek their well-being and to satisfy their needs.

d) It also violates the right of every man to have children.

5. THE FILIATION

Filiation is a legal situation that derives from a natural fact of procreation. It does not coincide, and sometimes it is even desirable that it does not coincide, the biological affiliation with the legal affiliation; According to the first, every human being has a father and mother, even if it is not known who they are. Biological parentage can be defined as the bond that links the person generated with their generators and has important manifestations in hereditary characteristics. For the Law, filiation is rather the link or legal relationship that exists between two people to whom the law attributes the character of procreative and procreated.

It is clear that legal filiation must be based on biological filiation, and take from it the presumptions and indications to establish that peculiar filiation relationship, but sometimes biology itself cannot establish the biological relationship of filiation with certainty.

According to nature, there are no children without a father and mother; According to the Law, there may be children without a father or mother, either because they are unknown or because their identity is known, the formalities have not been completed or the requirements for the legal relationship of filiation to be born.

Even when biologically filiation and hereditary characteristics are received from all ancestors, for the Law, filiation is specified only in the relationship of the child with his father and mother and therefore is reduced to paternity and maternity, and through them with the other ancestors.

By the same nature, maternity is established by the fact of delivery and by the identity of the product. One is the mother's child if the birth is proven and that the person claiming that maternal affiliation is the product of that birth.

The uncertainty of paternity is not biological but social, since only a male cell can engender the product in the mother. This uncertainty is cleared by the law through presumptions, which, although based on biological elements, make other types of attributions based on the integrity of the family, social peace, etc., which go beyond the biological field and sometimes in fact. they contradict it.

The filiation of legitimate children

Children born of legitimate marriage are legitimate. So are those born of putative marriage, even when there has been bad faith in one or both spouses (Arts. 256 and 344).

It is understood that the children of the marriage are those born after 180 days of its celebration or before 300 of its completion, or after the spouses have separated. (Art. 324). This is the general rule that attributes to the husband, therefore, all the children born to his wife during that period. This is a presumption that nevertheless admits proof to the contrary, since there will be times when it is clear that the children cannot be the husband's and there will be other hypotheses in which they do belong to the husband even when they are born outside of that period. The presumption of legitimacy does not admit more proof to the contrary than the physical impossibility of having been engendered by the husband, Art. 325).

The presumption of legitimacy of the children operates as long as it is not contradicted by the husband, who can only deny paternity by demonstrating that during "the ten months preceding the birth he did not have carnal access to his wife" or that the birth was hidden from him. (Art. 326). With a time as long as indicated, the Code is demonstrating its desire to hinder the husband's action to contradict paternity over his wife's children.

In addition, the legal text denies any validity to the confession of the wife that tried to contradict the paternity of her husband by attributing it to another man. With this, it is intended to protect the family by making legitimate all those children of the wife over which the husband has not contradicted paternity and restricting this contradiction action by the husband to the only two cases that we have mentioned.

The legal presumption of paternity of the husband follows different rules in the event that the woman does not respect the 300-day period imposed by Art. 158 and contracts a new marriage before the end of that period, which must be counted from the end of the marriage or previous cohabitation. In this case, Art. 334 attributes to the first marriage the child that is born within 300 days after the end of the first and before 180 days after the second is celebrated and attributes to the second husband the paternity of the child born after 180 days after the second was celebrated, even if the 300 days after the first one have not yet expired.

The filiation of natural children

Our code also speaks of legitimate children, which are those who, having been born as natural, by the subsequent marriage of their parents, are held, for all legal purposes, as children of the marriage from the date of this (Arts. 354 and 357). As the law does not distinguish, any type of natural children can be legitimized, with the exception of those who, such as incestuous children, or some cases of adultery, were born to parents who cannot marry each other (Cf. Art. 156 Fracs. III and V). The legitimate child has all the rights of the legitimate child from the date of the marriage of her parents.

A) Voluntary recognition

It has the following characteristics:

Unilateral: Declarative.

III. Very personal.

Individual Irrevocable Solemn.

B) Filition by judicial declaration.

The son and his descendants are the only holders of these actions, which can only be exercised in relation to the mother, when they are not intended to impute maternity to a married woman (Art. 385) unless this is deduced from a sentence judicial (Art. 386).

Maternity can be accredited by any means of proof, since what is being established is the fact of delivery and the identity of the product.

On the other hand, paternity can only be investigated in the cases and with the means that the law restrictively indicates. This is logical, and cannot be interpreted as an anti-feminist measure, as it derives from nature itself. It is very difficult to attribute false maternity wards; On the other hand, if the law does not restrict the investigation of paternity, it would be very easy to attribute false paternities that would serve as the basis for blackmail and serious family and patrimonial problems.

Effects of filiation

Here too it is necessary to distinguish between legitimate and extramarital children.

For legitimate children.

They have the right to bear the surnames of their parents. Although the Civil Code does not say anything, by majority reason we affirm the above, since recognized naturals have it (Art. 389, Section 1). They are not required to carry these surnames, as the law does not say how the person's name should be formed. It is specified to demand that every human being have a name.

They have the right to be fed by their parents, who, as spouses, will determine who this economic burden falls on (Art. 164), the children being able to request assurance of this right by virtue of the preferential right granted to them by Art. 165.

They have the right to live in the conjugal home, and for that the Code marks their parents as their legal domicile (Art. 32, Section 1) and obliges them to live with them (Art. 421).

They have the right to be educated by their parents who not only have to provide the economic means to acquire culture, but above all by creating and maintaining the family environment conducive to the harmonious development of the child. In the case of legitimate children, this right is strengthened by the marriage commitment of their parents, which necessarily includes the education of the offspring as the end of the marriage.

He is entitled to the child's share in the legitimate inheritance and to a testamentary pension if necessary.

For children born out of wedlock the effects of filiation are the same, with the exception of the right to live in the home of their parents, since not even in the case of concubines does this right exist, since concubines have no obligation to live together and therefore end their life together when either of them decides. The right to be educated by their parents also suffers from demerit in the case of these children, since parents who do not live with them cannot fully fulfill this obligation.

In everything else, the recognized natural child is equal to the legitimate one, which is fair, since his condition has been imposed on him without consulting him and without his fault. Furthermore, in property matters, the law could go further by requiring the parents of the natural child to ensure, within their possibilities, the economic future of their children, without detriment to the legitimate family, when it exists.

VII. THE ADOPTION

This is a new institute within our civil law, since neither the 1870 nor the 1884 Code considered it within their provisions. It was the current Code of 1928 that restored the old adoption institute.

By virtue of the adoption, a legal filiation relationship is created between the adopter and the adoptee, without any biological basis. Moreover, if it existed, the adoption would not proceed, since no one can adopt their own child.

The purpose of the adoption is to protect the person and property of the adoptee, for which reason it should only be authorized when it benefits the latter and not only to satisfy the wishes of the adopter. The main thing in adoption is the interest of the adoptee.

We can divide the laws that allow adoption into two large groups:

Those in which the adoptee is separated from his blood relatives. In them, the adoption breaks the previous kinship if it existed, or prevents it from being born when it did not exist, prohibiting any action that seeks to investigate the paternity or maternity of the adoptee both on the part of the adoptee and his / her presumed parents and ordering the destruction prior to the adoption of any evidence (birth certificates or any other document) that may establish biological parentage in the future.

Only if the adoption were to end, would paternity or maternity be investigated.

Rather, this system looks to the interest of the adopter, who wishes to be free in the future from any interference produced by parents or blood relatives, and prevents the adoptee himself from identifying his blood family.

Those in which the adoptee retains his consanguineous relatives, although the adoptive parentage, while it exists, is exercised in preference to that one. The parental authority of the consanguineous is suspended and will be exercised again if the adoption ends when the adoptee is under the age of majority. All other obligations and rights of blood relatives also subsist, although subsidiary to those of the adopter.

This system looks more at the interests of the adoptee, who is protected in the event that the adoption ends, he can be fed by his blood relatives and inherit them, but in turn, he can have obligations in relation to them, which indirectly maybe they will charge onto the adopter. The adoptee knows or may come to know who her parents are.

This second system is the one that our code accepts according to which "the rights and obligations that result from natural kinship are not extinguished by adoption, except for parental authority that will be transferred to the adopter" (Art. 403).

It is difficult to reconcile the various interests that intersect in the act of adoption, since they are natural father or mother, adopter and adopted. The adopter will almost always want to end the natural parentage so that it does not interfere with the new adoptive parentage, since otherwise it does not make the adoption, which ultimately is to the detriment of the adoptee. Keeping the natural kinship alive can lead to blackmail or abuse by unscrupulous parents against the adopter, which prevents the latter from carrying out the adoption. The adopted child can also be harmed by being totally in the hands of the adopter who may eventually regret the adoption.

VIII. THE CONCUBINATE

The free union denies the right of the children to the home and supposes. the total demoralization of customs by destroying the family; I don `t believe. in conclusion, that the free union constitutes the union of the future, since it would be contrary to progress and the incessant march of humanity towards an ideal of justice and freedom ».

Therefore, it insists on immorality and as a consequence, on the wrongfulness of the concubinage. This goes against good customs and always constitutes a fault with himself (selfishness that does not wish to commit) with the other party (loss of honor) towards the children (their right, inherent in every human person, to come into the world is violated and being educated in a family) and with society (a bad example that we should all avoid). The morality that can never be alien to the law, clearly rejects the concubinage, and considers it as an aggravating circumstance of simple fornication, always illegal outside of marriage. There is, however, one point that should be highlighted when talking about the moral aspect of the concubinage.

On the other hand, recognition by the law goes against the will of the concubines themselves, who precisely want their union to not be recognized. At least in the concubinage established between people who do not have marital impediments between them, some authors have even affirmed the existence of a true concubine pact, which gives rise to a concubine state, since they do not do what they could legally do. They are kept out of the law of their own free will.

The case of couples who only get married before the minister of their religion but do not go to the Civil Registry and that continues to be an important sector, because according to the same Population Census mentioned above, for every 1,000 marriages contracted in 1980, 222 were only for civil matters, 728 for civil and religious matters and 50 only before the religious minister. This is also the case of many couples who, due to extreme ignorance or laziness, do not meet the requirements that are demanded of them in the Civil Registry (birth certificates, agreement on assets, medical certificates, etc.) and begin to lead a marital life without any another formality; These are true natural marriages, which, when formed by a true matrimonial consent, cannot be considered as concubines, although legal formalism places them in that category.

The Civil Code admits and gives legal effects to other types of extra-marital unions that do not meet the characteristics of a common-law marriage, and thus, for example, allows the investigation of paternity “when the child was conceived during the time the mother lived. under the same roof with the alleged father, living maritally »(Art. 382, Frac. 111). The action that arises to investigate paternity in this case, does not originate from a concubinage, since the presumption in relation to it is contained in the following article. (Art. 383).

The concubinage is always presented to us as the de facto situation in which a man and a woman find themselves, who without being married, lead a marital life.

Concubinage requires stability and permanence, which differs from temporary or sporadic sexual unions (there is no stability) or from those habitual sexual relationships, but which are not accompanied by cohabitation (there is no permanence).

Therefore, there are four elements of concubinage:

1) de facto extramarital situation;

2) sexual intercourse;

3) community of habitation;

4) certain duration of that union.

Our law also adds other elements necessary so that this de facto union can produce effects as a concubinage. In Art. 1635 these elements are found and thus, we can say that for our code the concubinage is the union that brings together the following elements:

1) Union of man and woman to make a life similar to that of the spouses. There are therefore no concubines between people of the same sex. The law speaks, whenever it is the case, of concubine and concubine.

2) De facto union between unmarried persons, neither with each other nor with another person - none of them. If they were married to each other, it would be marriage, and if either of them were married to another, it would be adultery. Concubinage is not an adulterous union as expressly required by the aforementioned Art. 1635 by indicating that "both have remained free from marriage during the concubinage."

PREAMBLE

CURRENT TEXT

Law published in the Official Gazette of the Federation on May 26, 1928 The Constitutional President of the Republic has served to address me the following decree: PLUTARCO ELIAS CALLES, Constitutional President of the United Mexican States, to its inhabitants, know: In use of the faculty that the H. Congress of the Union has seen fit to confer on me by Decrees of January 7 and December 6, 1926 and January 3, 1928, I issue the following

CIVIL CODE FOR THE FEDERAL DISTRICT

PRELIMINARY PROVISIONS

Article 1. The provisions of this Code shall govern in the Federal District in matters of common order, and throughout the Republic in matters of federal order.

Article 2. Legal capacity is equal for men and women; consequently, women are not subjected, by reason of their sex, to any restriction in the acquisition and exercise of their civil rights.

Alberto Pacheco E. The Family in Mexican Civil Law. Panorama. 1998.

Pacheco. Op. Cit.

Kinship: blood relationship or affinity between people. Encarta 2000.

Pacheco. Op. Cit

Spokesperson: the one who speaks for another. Larousse small dictionary

Alberto Pacheco. Op. Cit

"By virtue of the divorce, the marriage bond is dissolved, leaving both divorced in aptitude to contract a new marriage." Ricardo Soto Pérez. Notions of Positive Mexican Law. P. 147.

Pacheco. Op. Cit.

Filiation: descent, kinship ties between parents and children. Larousse Dictionary

It is irrevocable because once done it can be contradicted by whoever is entitled to do so, but cannot be revoked by whoever did it. Pacheco Op. Cit. p 195.

Pacheco Op. Cit.

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