Definition
A Latin legal term meaning to live with or dwell together, particularly in the manner of husband and wife. Used in old English law to describe the condition of a man and woman inhabiting the same dwelling and conducting themselves as a married couple, whether or not formally wed. The term captures both the physical fact of shared residence and the relational character of that arrangement — coexistence in the domestic and conjugal sense.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Cohabitate" or "cohabit" — to live together, especially as romantic or sexual partners without being married.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To inhabit or reside in the same place; specifically, to live together as husband and wife.
The gap here is directional rather than contradictory. Modern common usage has largely shed the quasi-marital implication, treating cohabitation as a neutral description of shared living. The Latin legal form cohabitare, as used in old English law, carried a stronger legal freight: it was a term of art describing a condition that could trigger legal consequences — bearing on legitimacy of children, property rights, or presumptions of marriage. Researchers should not read the modern neutral sense back into historical documents using this term.
Why It Matters in Research
Cohabitare appears in medieval and early modern English legal records, statutes, and Year Books as a term of legal characterization, not merely factual description. When a historical source states that two persons cohabitabant ut vir et uxor — lived together as man and wife — this is typically an assertion with legal consequences attached: it may support a presumption of valid marriage, establish the legitimacy of offspring, or ground a claim to dower or other marital rights.
Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus should be alert to two traps. First, the term is Latin and appears in Latinized pleadings and statute text, but its English cognate "cohabit" carries over into English-language records and case reports with the same legal weight — the form shifts but the legal meaning does not. Second, the relationship between cohabitare and formal marriage varied across period and context. In some sources, proof of cohabitation ut vir et uxor was treated as evidence of a valid common-law marriage; in others, it was simply one element of a broader factual inquiry. The two should not be conflated.
The Statute of Westminster II, c. 34 — cited in Burrill — is a significant anchor point. That statute addressed ravishment and the rights of women, and the use of cohabitare in that context illustrates how the term was deployed to characterize domestic arrangements for purposes of legal standing and remedy. Researchers encountering the term in Year Book citations or Dyer's reports should treat it as a legal term of art requiring contextual interpretation, not a neutral descriptor.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the primary historical authority. Burrill traces the term to its Latin components — con (together) and habitare (to dwell or be often with) — and situates it firmly in old English law. His citation to Stat. Westm. 2, c. 34 and to Dyer, 76b (French edition) grounds the term in specific legal instruments, confirming that cohabitare was a working term in medieval English legal proceedings, not merely a scholarly Latinism.
Burrill's entry is brief but precise. The phrase cohabitabant ut vir et uxor drawn from Dyer is particularly instructive: the use of the imperfect tense (they were living together) suggests the term was used to characterize a continuing state, not a single act. This temporal dimension — ongoing cohabitation rather than a discrete event — is legally significant and consistent with how cohabitation evidence functioned in marriage and legitimacy disputes.
No other historical dictionary in the current source set covers this term. Researchers needing fuller treatment should consult Thomas Blount's Nomo-Lexicon (1670) and the Latin glossaries appended to early editions of Coke's works, which address cognate terminology in the medieval common law tradition.
Jurisdictional Note
As a Latin term of old English law, cohabitare is not a term in active use in any modern jurisdiction. Its legal descendants — "cohabitation" and related doctrines — vary significantly by jurisdiction, particularly regarding whether cohabitation creates legal rights or obligations. Modern research on cohabitation law should treat cohabitare as historical context, not operative authority.