Ethnic minorities not married to commonlaw norm
When Eluza Maria Gomes came from Brazil to Quebec, she adapted quickly to her new society. She learned to speak fluent French, studied to become a special-education teacher, and, because she was dating a French-Canadian dairy farmer, the former literature professor found herself helping to care for 60 cows who reside on a farm 90 minutes outside of Montreal.
But there was one cultural norm distinct to Quebec she was not prepared to adopt: common-law union.
“In Brazil, we get married,” said Gomes, who is an evangelical Protestant in a country where Christianity dominates.
“Some people might live together for a few months or a year or so, but eventually, almost everyone gets married.”
So when she and Bruno Letendre, who is chairman of the Quebec dairy farmers’ association, decided they wanted to be together permanently, she organized a modest matrimonial ceremony in 2014 presided over by a notary and attended by family, a few close friends, and her pastor. And she wore a wedding dress.
Although common-law relationships are the norm in Quebec, Gomes and Letendre were actually in step with a marriage anomaly that occurs when one of the partners in the relationship is from a cultural minority.
For the most part, French Quebecers remain distinct in their preference for common-law unions.
While in most provinces more than half of Canadians under 35 chose to be married in 2016, in Quebec, 81 per cent of Frenchspeaking couples opted to live together without getting married, figures from the Statistics Canada census show.
French Quebecers who marry someone whose mother tongue is English are still more likely not to be married, with 65 per cent of those unions remaining common law.
But the matrimonial picture changes dramatically when a French Quebecer falls in love with a member of an ethnic minority, also defined as someone whose mother tongue is neither French nor English. In three-quarters of those cases, and even more often when one of the partners comes from such areas as Southeast Asia or northern Africa, there is a wedding.
“If you’re a francophone, and you’re marrying into an ethnic minority community, be prepared to get married,” said Jack Jedwab, vice-president of the Association for Canadian Studies, who combed through the statistics from the 2016 Canadian census to get a picture of the state of civil unions in Quebec.
“In terms of the clash of values, where one side feels the institution of marriage is very important and the other side does not, four out of five times, it’s those people who think the institution is important who will win the day on that one.”
Francophone Quebecers stand out compared to French speakers in other provinces, who are much more likely to be married. Jedwab ascribes that distinction to the lessening of stature and credibility of the church that occurred in Quebec starting with the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s, as the state slowly took over more powers, and the population turned away en masse from the Roman Catholic Church. In other provinces, religious institutions have not disintegrated in the same way, so the institution of marriage, often closely linked to religion, remained stronger, he said.
Slightly less than 50 per cent of francophones under 35 in Alberta and Ontario, for instance, are in common-law unions. Among anglophones in Quebec, 53 per cent are in common-law relationships, a figure that is only slightly higher than their linguistic confreres in the rest of Canada.
Quebecers living in rural regions were even more apt to resist marriage, with young people in places like Matane, Rivièredu-Loup or Rimouski 90 per cent likely to remain common law.
“If there’s a wedding in a community like that, it’s a rare event,” Jedwab said.
Among Quebec allophones, only 22 per cent live in common-law unions. Statistics Canada figures show the tendency is especially low in Quebec among those age 25 to 35 who identified themselves on the census as Punjabi (2.5 per cent); Bangladeshi (3.2 per cent) or of South Asian origin (6.1 per cent). Pakistanis, Algerians, Moroccans, Iranians and East Indians were also rarely in common-law relationships. Among Brazilians living in Quebec, only one in four listed him- or herself as common law as opposed to being married.
In general, Jedwab found that numbers for common-law unions among allophones were highest for those originating from European countries, and lower from cultures where religion still plays a dominant role.
While Gomes has nothing against those who choose not to marry, she said it could never work for her.
“For me it’s a question of culture,” she said. “I have been culturally raised to think like that, so it’s hard to change.”
Not to mention the fact her parents back in Brazil would not have been pleased.
Her husband is neutral on the topic, although he said he probably would have opted for a common-law cohabitation if it was up to him.
“But it was important to her, so we got married,” he said. “With her there was no doubt.”
Getting formally married did not affect the immigration process for Gomes or the amount of time it took for her to be granted permanent residency, he noted.
“They look at that on a caseby-case basis, not based just on whether you’re married or not,” he said.
There are hints that wedding bells could be pealing more often in Quebec. As immigration rates rise in the province, so, too, has the number of francophones marrying into cultural communities. Between 2006 and 2016, the number of French Quebecers who were either married to or in common-law unions with members of ethnic minorities jumped by 20 per cent.
In terms of the clash of values … four out of five times, it’s those people who think the institution is important who will win the day on that one.