The Right to Marry and the Right to Establish a Family in the Universal, European and Polish Dimension

The subject of the article is an analysis of the human right to marry and the right to establish a family. The author considers the guarantees of this right in three areas. The first one is the universal dimension, the essence of which are the documents guaranteeing the protection of human rights adopted by the United Nations: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights. In the European dimension, the most important is Article 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights, ensuring the right to marry for a man and a woman who have reached the appropriate age. In the Polish national dimension, Article 18 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 1997 solidified the existing traditional form of marriage, i.e. the state of a union between a man and a woman. It also ensures the care and protection of the state to families created on the basis of a formally concluded marriage, as well as to other families, especially those with many children and incomplete families. According to the author, the right to get married and the right to found a family are connected and complementary, but the right to start a family can be exercised independently of getting married.