A civil union is a legally recognized relationship, known by a variety of other names, that grants some or all of the rights of marriage, with the adoption of children being a common exception. Many jurisdictions that maintain civil unions recognize a foreign union as equivalent to their own, and the marriages of same-sex couples performed abroad may themselves be recognized as civil unions in jurisdictions that only offer the latter. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
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Common-law marriage and civil union are both institutions that grant some legal recognition to a couple relationship without a formal marriage ceremony.
A civil union offers many of the legal protections of marriage without using the marriage institution itself, typically created to extend recognition to couples excluded from marriage.
Civil unions were widely adopted as a legal precursor or parallel institution to same-sex marriage, extending some or most marital rights to same-sex couples before or instead of full marriage recognition.
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Civil Union (Wikipedia)
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Civil unions grant some or all of the rights of marriage, with child adoption being a common exception.
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