A domestic partnership is defined as a form of legal relationship established by default between two persons residing in the same residence for a given period of time, but who have not officially been married or involved in a civil union. The levels of protection and rights domestic partnerships grant each individual widely vary from state to state in the United States, and in most states, are under change or have recently been changed to reflect changing sentiments among their population. For the sake of ascertaining ownership of assets, domestic partnership statutes have been used to acknowledge partial ownership of property by one domestic partner to that of another and vice versa.