The Traditionalism of the Modern Family – Social and Legal Direction and Contradiction

The current conjugal mentality in Romania reflects a kind of atypical modernity – a modernity of declarations regarding the status, marital roles and functions of the family, but, at the same time, there is a kind of traditionalism regarding concrete facts. According to the latest social studies, about 40% of Romanians declare themselves to be traditional, in some way or another. Although the majority of couples talk in egalitarian terms about sharing conjugal roles and gender equality (in phrases that are most often stereotypical), the actual situations reveal a distribution of roles based on gender as well as social inequality.Another dimension that shows the same contradiction in terms of values is represented by the problem of conjugal independence expressed through the need for an alternative emotional association to the institution of marriage (i.e. consensual union) and through the need for more relaxed divorce legislation to make separation easier. Thus, divorce by agreement was introduced in Romania in 1993, Art. 305 of the Penal Code (on penal sanctions for proven infidelity) was revoked in 2006, and divorce before a notary public or a civil status registrar was legalized and introduced in 2010. As a consequence, we would have expected an increase in the divorce rate in Romania. However, the rate of marital dissolution remained low (between 1.5‰ – 1.7‰), Romania being among the countries with the lowest divorce rates in Europe.On the same note, statistical data shows that 5.7% of people are in favour of cohabitation; the social legitimacy of this phenomenon seems even stronger, although proposed drafts for a national law legalising cohabitation stirred strong reactions which paradoxically contest precisely this previously affirmed legitimacy.The study aims to explain these cultural and legal problems in terms of common direction and contradiction. From the methodological point of view, the study relies on analysis of official documents from divorce files, secondary analysis of national social studies, comparative analysis of the proposed national draft legislation for the legalization of cohabitation and equivalent international legislation.