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Contracts In Close Personal Relationships

When considering the ways in which the law organizes exchanges between people in close relationships involving considerable economic and emotional interdependence, contracts do not immediately come to mind. The contractual model, as classical legal theory conceptualizes it, hardly seems compatible with the intimacy and trust that such relationships generally involve.

However, new conceptions of contract, based on contemporary theories, can be proposed. A contract is more than an instrument of legal coercion used to threaten a party into performing his or her obligations. Beyond the dominant paradigms and pre-conceived notions, it can also be helpful in organizing and planning a long-lasting and beneficial relationship that responds to the partners' various needs for ordering, regardless of the level of normativity involved. Within a clearly defined legal environment, contracts can help build a framework that is adjusted to the contours of each relationship while respecting the values of equality, justice and liberty upon which Canadian society is based.