Same sex couples - Marital Status & Relationship/Reciprocal standards?

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Hello, we would like to standardize how our same-sex couples are defined in RE.  We honor any requests regarding titles et al, but for consistency, we'd like to know how others in the field are approaching this when no specific guidance is given from the consituent.


Can you share what you enter for Marital Status ("Married", "Partnered", other?) and how you define the Relationship and Reciprocal fields?  "Wife-Wife" / "Husband/Husband", "Spouse-Spouse", "Partner-Partner"?


Thanks so much for your input!

Jane

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  • If married, we treat them as such and enter the info on the Spouse button/check of the spouse check box.  If not, we add them via the relationship tab and note as "Life Partner/Life Partner" (since "Partner" was already in use to mean business partner), the same as we do for any unmarried couple.


    If married, we tend to have the relationship/recip relationship be wife/wife or husband/husband (rather than spouse/spouse).  Mainly to show that this was a concious decision on our part and not a brain cramp/error that cause us to mark them as married.


    It's been awhile since we set these "rules" up, so perhaps it may be due for reconsideration - curious what others have to say!


    Shani
  • If you're looking for terminology, you might consider having a Marital Status value of Domestic Partner also.  You may choose to clarify your current term of Partner to really say Business Partner.


    We don't have Relationship values of Husband/Wife, but rather have Spouse/Spouse available.  Many of our records don't have this indicated, despite the fact that the spouse is checked just to the left of it.  While this is far from a perfect solution, there are other factors relating to time, memberships and cards that make this the easiest way for us.


    I've seen instances where the relationship is "babysitter," which is really specific.  And other times I've seen "child/parent" instead of "son/mother."  C/P is more vague.  I would say that whatever you choose, lock down the security to limit free form text entry in the Relationship/Reciprocal field.

  • Jane Owsley:

    Hello, we would like to standardize how our same-sex couples are defined in RE.  We honor any requests regarding titles et al, but for consistency, we'd like to know how others in the field are approaching this when no specific guidance is given from the consituent.


    Can you share what you enter for Marital Status ("Married", "Partnered", other?) and how you define the Relationship and Reciprocal fields?  "Wife-Wife" / "Husband/Husband", "Spouse-Spouse", "Partner-Partner"?


    Thanks so much for your input!

    Jane

    We use Spouse/Partner as the relationship code for all couples.

  • Like several other groups that have responded, we also use spouse/spouse for the relationships and enter them in the spouse record on bio 1.

    Good luck, hope that helps.

     

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