Possibilities for the Private-Law Integration of the Facultative Marriage Model in Hungary – Empirical Insights into a Possible Legal Policy Direction

Abstract

The article examines whether, and under what legal-technical and constitutional conditions, Hungary could adopt a facultative marriage model in which a marriage concluded before a religious officiant would, if certain statutory guarantees are met, produce the same civil law effects as a marriage concluded before a state registrar. The analysis situates the debate in the long-standing tension in Hungarian private law between party autonomy and state control over personal status. Building on comparative European solutions, the study argues that marriage in modern private law is created primarily by the parties’ serious, concordant declaration of will; state recognition is largely declaratory, serving legal certainty and public oversight rather than constituting the relationship itself. The empirical part relies on a mixed-methods study of professionally involved actors. An overwhelming majority of clergy (≈89%) consider the act they perform to be capable of constituting a legally valid marriage, and the wider professional sample articulates two, ultimately compatible narratives: the protection of private autonomy and the demand for predictable, state-guaranteed registration. The findings suggest that a regulated pluralism of marriage forms is viewed as socially and normatively acceptable, and that an optional, church-or-civil route to a single legal status could be integrated coherently into Hungarian private law without abandoning constitutional limits on state–church relations.