While a couple is married, the federal ''[http://canlii.ca/t/7vf2 Criminal Code]'' requires each spouse to provide the other with the "necessities of life," whatever that may exactly mean. Apart from this one provision of the criminal law, there is no legislation that defines the duties spouses owe to each other during their marriage. (Under the old common law, marriage actually involved a number of specific obligations, including the duty of married spouses to live together and to provide each other with the companionship and the other benefits of married life, as well as a number of other obligations that depended on the spouse's gender.)