Cohabitation

Living together.

Obs. The law presumes that husband and wife cohabit, even after a voluntary separation has taken place between them; but where there has been a divorce a mensa et thoro, or a sentence of separation, the presumption then arises that they have obeyed the sentence or decree and do not live together.

A criminal cohabitation will not be presumed by the proof of a single act of criminal intercourse between a man and woman not married.

When a woman is proved to cohabit with a man and to assume his name with his consent, he will generally be responsible for her debts as if she had been his wife, this being presumptive evidence of marriage, but this liability will continue only while they live together unless she is actually his wife.

In civil actions for criminal conversation with the plaintiff's wife after the husband and wife have separated, the plaintiff will not in general be entitled to recover.
   

This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.