Legal structure of the family in Colombia, changes of its conformation and patrimonial regime

Abstract

The family, as a fundamental unit that embodies social, cultural, and religious values of any Country, should be protected. It is the State responsibility to recognize its new structuring methods and regulate them: assembled families, rebuilt, merged, mixed, second time marriage, single-parental, and homo-parental. The nucleus family fell short, its changes result from equity. The proposal is to approach the relationship between the law and the family, the social impact it causes, and prepare for them. The purpose of the research is to analyze right creating judgments issued by the Colombian Constitutional Court, which made changes in legal structure of the family in Colombia, by extending effects of the patrimonial society, rights and obligations of heterosexual couples forming any common law union, to those of the same sex. Research method: Historical hermeneutical. Approach: Qualitative and analytical research. Techniques and instruments: document review of judgments issued by the Colombian Constitutional Court creating law. Phases: To identify, classify, contract and analyze judgments issued by the Constitutional Court, producing changes of family structure. Population and sample: Judgments issued by the Constitutional Court between 1996 and 2012, considered as res judicata. Decisions made by the Constitutional Court should make us reflect on new ways of family organization, with no homophobic prejudices, and strengthen heterosexual family as a sanctuary of life.