The Cabinet on Tuesday resolved to remove the controversial section 40 from the Marriages Bill which recognises civil partnerships.
The Section had met stiff resistance from the public as it was considered to be a move to legalise cohabitation (kubika mapoto).
Speaking during a post-media Cabinet briefing held in Harare on Tuesday, Attorney-General Prince Machaya said:
Marriage creates a status in a person. When two people meet and get married, their status in law changes, they have a news status: that of married people.
That status comes with certain rights and obligations that the parties in that marriage can enforce against each other and against the world as a whole.
Now, when two people just move and live together, the rights they have are the rights they have as individuals. Their living together does not confer any additional rights upon them.
So, a person who enters into such an arrangement and is thereafter left by the other party can only enforce such rights as they have as individuals because they have not acquired any additional rights by entering into that arrangement.
Machaya added that couples who are involved in the practice of cohabitating know that what they are doing is frowned upon by society. He said:
They’re aware of what they’re doing; they’re aware of how those types of relationships are viewed by society and that the law does not recognise them.
So people should not cry foul and say that they’re not being protected because there’re virtually no additional rights to protect except the rights they always had as individuals.
More: ZimLive.com