Family Rights and Duties, For Better Or for Worse …
For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part. Those are powerful wedding vows, aren’t they? If you are thinking about getting married, remember that marriage is not only a sacred institution – it is a legal contract. When you utter those wonderful vows, the law automatically calls for additional rights and obligations for both spouses.
Let’s discuss the obligations that arise from both the marriage relationship and parent-child relationship.
Rights and Duties of the Marriage Relationship:
If you pick up a law book, the state often refers to marital obligations where each spouse must care for, protect, and support the other. For the most part, that means food, clothing and shelter. It also means supporting one another financially, using his/her own separate property when needed to provide spousal support for community living expenses, as well as having fiduciary obligations to each other.
Basically, anything between a husband and wife – business transactions, daily affairs, et cetera – should be attempted in good faith, with the highest of integrity, and be advantageous to both spouses.
If a spouse is unaware that their spouse sold a shared property, the unaware spouse could have a case in court. On a different note, in a community property state like Texas, a person who cheats on a spouse effectively violates those marital obligations and may have uneasy ground to stand on in divorce court.
The lesson here is simple: marital rights and duties are legally enforceable. So take those vows to heart.
Rights and Duties of the Parent:
When the family unit is created, parents are obligated to support their children. Plain and simple. Spouses must jointly care for their kids until those children are no longer considered minors by law (18 or older, married or emancipated). Even in divorce, that legal responsibility continues.
A parent’s duties include providing care, control, support, protection, and reasonable discipline of their child. Those duties are imposed when the child is born.
Parents also have certain rights, which include:
- Right to possess and choose where a child lives.
- Right to direct moral and religious training.
- Right to services and earnings.
- Right to consent to their child’s marriage, enlistment in armed forces, surgical treatment, et cetera.
- Right to represent, make decisions for their child in legal actions.
- Right to manage support payments.
- Right to inherit if the child dies
- Right to decide on education.
- Right to reasonably discipline
Have a family question? Please give one of our team members at Nelson Law Group, PC a call.
