Civil union
civil status similar to marriage, most often independent of the gender of partners
A civil union, also known by a variety of other terms, is a legal recognition of a relationship. Civil unions grant some or all of the rights of marriage, with child adoption being a common exception. Many jurisdictions with civil unions recognize foreign unions if those are essentially equivalent to their own; for example, the United Kingdom lists equivalent unions in the Civil Partnership Act 2004 Schedule 20. The marriages of same-sex couples performed abroad may be recognized as civil unions in jurisdictions that only have the latter.
Civil unions have been established by law in several mostly developed countries in order to provide legal recognition of relationships formed by same-sex couples and to afford them rights, benefits, tax breaks, and responsibilities. In 1989, Denmark was the first country to legalise civil unions; however, most other developed democracies did not begin establishing them until the 1990s and early 2000s. In Brazil, civil unions were first created for opposite-sex couples in 2002, and then expanded to include same-sex couples in 2011. In the majority of countries that established same-sex civil unions, they have since been either supplemented or replaced by same-sex marriage. Civil unions are viewed by LGBT rights campaigners as a "first step" towards establishing same-sex marriage, as civil unions are viewed by supporters of LGBT rights as a "separate but equal" status.
Overview and terminology
The terms used to designate civil unions are not standardised and vary widely from country to country.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Civil union” is civil status similar to marriage, most often independent of the gender of partners. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Civil, union and civil, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “civil status similar to marriage, most often independent of the gender of partners” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q41075. The Library of Congress control number is sh2002011300. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2004, 1989, 2002 and 2011.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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Three-step research path
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- Expand the search: follow Civil union primary sources, Civil union archive and Civil research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Civil union” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.