 Unlike common-law marriage, this relationship status is legally recognized at the moment when two people enter a "marriage-like" relationship, which makes the couple eligible for other rights and benefits.Specifically, the protections apply when two persons effectively begin to reside together in a joint home and live together as a couple in a presumptively permanent, sexual and cohabiting relationship.It ensures that the couples may legally contract for how their protected common property will be divided before any eventual separation and that an equal division of that property will be presumed in the absence of establishing different ownership shares.