Family Law as a Right to Freedoms: The Case of Same-Sex Marriage in Spain

The family as a social group has experienced a radical change especially after the end of the Second World War. The first question that arises from this concerns the role the legal system has to play when social circumstances change so fast that no sooner has the legislature decided to regulate a situation than it is already overtaken by events that are heading in another direction. To try to find the most appropriate response to this, this article uses different ideological approaches that lead to protecting autonomy as the best way of regulating family circumstances in the present context. The problems of the constitutionality of marriage between persons of the same sex and the protection of independence for those who do not want to marry are analysed from that perspective.