The Evolving Legacies: How Modern Family Structures Are Reshaping Inheritance Law for Stepchildren, Cohabiting Partners, and Same-Sex Couples

Abstract

This paper will explore how modern families nowadays impacts inheritance laws in India and by the meaning of ‘modern family’ we mean stepfamilies, cohabitating partners and same sex couples, these modern families are wholly impacting the lives of modern families and also plays a crucial role in their reshaping new or changed laws in India as they are also reshaping the new old norms and that’s why we are experiences gaps in between. In the older times inheritance laws were made around nuclear or joint family setup where there were always married spouses and biological children but families are diverse where there are stepfamilies without and inheritance in case of intestacy and on the other hand we nowadays we have live- in couples also called cohabitating partners which share lives and assets like married couples may have less legal recognition in inheritance matters if one partner dies without the will especially in places and jurisdictions that don’t recognize common law relationships. On the other side we have same sex couples as well and we will also cover their matters in this paper we have a detailed elucidation of how these new modern families are impacted in different ways. We will talk about how inheritance laws work in different jurisdictions where same sex couples lack recognition and how many challenges they face to have their rights of inheritance from their deceased partner, through this paper we will also look into the legal gaps we have in between and we will also see how we can acknowledge diverse family forms and would also ensure fair treatment of such modern families so that we need new legal reforms for that and how we can do that we will learn about that through this paper. This paper will also focus on how current laws are unable to meet the requirements of realties of modern structure and how many other foreign jurisdictions are dealing with this situation and they have made changes in the inheritance laws.