Introduction:

The family is considered as an institution in constant change. In spite of this, the legislator intends to maintain its structure from a religious, traditional, conservative, matrimonial perspective and based on monogamous and heterosexual couple relationships. However, social and cultural manifestations have achieved the recognition of family structures different from those regulated, in application of the principles of equality and equity, and in guarantee of patrimonial and personal rights, as in the case of concubinage.

Objective:

Establish the development and jurisprudential evolution in Colombia of the Supreme Court of Justice and the Constitutional Court that led to the concubinage from illegality to its recognition as a family structure with legal protection.

Materials and methods:

The jurisprudence on the concubinage of both Courts was reviewed and classified into three categories: those that began to recognize it as a family and established requirements for it, those that changed these requirements and those that established differences with the marital union in fact. Research

Result:

It demonstrates how to change from an illegal situation to a family structure with legal recognition, although not legal and, once again, how family law in Colombia is ineffective when recognizing the personal and patrimonial rights that derive from emerging family relationships.

Conclusion:

The results are framed in the current discussions of the social sciences on the family as an institution in permanent change, without implying that it is in crisis, because it is an understanding from the ends, roles and functions that the family fulfills in society and not from its structure.

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