Page:NCGLE v Minister of Home Affairs.djvu/48

Rh reflects widely varying expectations about marriage, family life and the position of women in society.” [Internal citations omitted]

In other countries a significant change in societal and legal attitudes to same-sex partnerships in the context of what is considered to constitute a family has occurred. Evidence of these changes are to be found in the jurisprudence dealing with equality issues in countries such as Canada, Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States. In referring to these judgments from the highest courts of other jurisdictions I do not overlook the different nature of their histories, legal systems and constitutional contexts nor that, in the last two cases, the issue was one essentially of statutory construction and not constitutional invalidity. Nevertheless, these judgments give expression to norms and values in other open and democratic societies Rh