Argentine judge rules woman can marry her own stepdaughter

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An Argentinian judge created quite a precedent, and an uproar, when he overrode the country's Civil Code and authorized a woman to marry her stepdaughter.

The unusual love story began when a woman – the two women's names are being withheld by the court system – married a much older man who had a daughter from a previous marriage who was nearly the same age as her.

After her husband's death in 2010, just four months after their wedding, the stepmom got closer with the daughter, and the two eventually started a romantic relationship, El Pais newspaper reported.

However, when last month the couple decided to formalize their relationship, they were denied a marriage license based on portion of the Civil Code, which has allowed same-sex marriage since 2010 but prohibits any kind of parent-child unions, even if the couple isn't related by blood.

Both women are now in their early 30s, and they sued claiming that the rule violated their constitutional rights.

And family judge Ricardo Dutto agreed, declaring the article unconstitutional and ruling that the constitution guarantees every citizen "the right to be happy."

“The National Constitution implicitly guarantees every citizen his right to seek his own happiness, which entails the right to be treated with dignity by the laws in all dimensions of life, including marriage," Dutto wrote in his opinion.

He also noted that the women had not lived as a couple while the man was alive.

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