Oracle partitioning scenario with primary key absolutely required
Yes, reference partitioning requires a primary key on the parent table.


  Reference partitioning enables the partitioning of two tables that are
  related to one another by referential constraints.
  
  The partitioning key is resolved through an existing parent-child
  relationship, enforced by enabled and active primary key and foreign
  key constraints.


If you try to do this with a unique key instead of a primary key, you will get this error:

ORA-02268: referenced table does not have a primary key