From October 1, it will be possible for anyone to remarry straight after a divorce, or the death of a spouse.
Law nº 85/ 2019 has done away with the obligatory ‘pause’ imposed between marriages – even in the case of widowhood.
It was initially proposed by Bloco de Esquerda to even-out the discrimination in previous rules which stipulated that men had to wait 180 days between divorce and remarriage (or between the death of one wife and the marriage with another) while women were made to wait almost double that time (300 days).
BE pushed for the statutory pause period to be the same for both sexes: ie 180 days.
PS Socialists then tried to fine-tune the proposal and bring it into the modern world by suggesting a 30-day wait for men and women, before PAN stepped in saying there should be no waiting whatsoever.
The draft law was originally proposed in 2017 and finally ratified on July 19 this year.
All parties voted in favour of PAN’s “no-waiting-time” proposal, except the centre-right CDS-PP which voted against.
Explain reports, the previous law – in force for half a century – was originally designed to “avoid eventual litigation over paternity”. Now that DNA testing has proved ‘unequivocal’, the vast majority of MPs agreed that the discriminatory waiting period for women was outdated – and why wait at all when you are in love?
