A domestic partnership is an intimate relationship between people, usually couples, who live together and share a common domestic life but who are not married (to each other or to anyone else). In some jurisdictions, people in domestic partnerships receive legal benefits that guarantee right of survivorship, hospital visitation, and other rights.
The term is not used consistently, which results in some inter-jurisdictional confusion. Some jurisdictions, such as Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. states of California, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington use the term "domestic partnership" to mean what other jurisdictions call civil union, civil partnership, or registered partnership. Other jurisdictions use the term as it was originally coined, to mean an interpersonal status created by local municipal and county governments, which provides an extremely limited range of rights and responsibilities.