Constitutional Protection of the Family

Abstract

The author emphasizes the need for the law to be flexible in the face of social changes, referring particularly to the family and its transformations as a legal institution and as a social and cultural construct. She reflects on the hegemonic nature of the bourgeois nuclear family in law, posing the challenge of ensuring that the law responds to the social reality that presents diverse family forms that do not fit the dominant model. She analyzes marriage as the paradigm of the couple relationship, even in the aspirations of those who wish to give their union legal effect, as is the case of same-sex couples who want to be legally married, or de facto unions, whether heterosexual or homosexual, demonstrating that the recognition of other family models and the response given to these demands can alter the position that marriage holds in the Constitution and the institutional guarantee enshrined therein.