ART. 43. The family, motherhood, and marriage are under the protection of the State.

Only marriages authorized by officials having legal capacity to effect them are valid. Civil marriage is gratuitous and shall be recognized by the law.

Marriage is the legal basis of the family, and rests upon absolute equality of rights of both husband and wife. The economic relationship between husband and wife shall be regulated in accordance with this principle.

The married woman enjoys the full advantages of equal civil capacity, with no necessity for marital permission or authorization in order to manage property, freely to engage in trade, to enter industry or a profession, to practice an art, to hold office, and to dispose of the product of her work.

Marriage may be dissolved by agreement of the husband and wife, or in the petition of either of the two, for the reasons and in the form established in the law.

The tribunals shall determine the cases in which, for reasons of justice, the union between persons with legal capacity to contract marriage shall be deemed comparable, in stability and special status, to civil marriage.

Allowances for support in favor of the woman and the children shall enjoy preference with respect to all other obligations, and this preference may not be derogated by any condition of unattachability of property, salary, pension, or economic investment of any kind whatever.

Unless the woman shall be proved to possess adequate means of subsistence, or unless she shall be declared at fault, periodic payments shall be fixed for her benefit proportionate to the economic position of the husband, and at the same time taking into account the necessities of social life. These payments shall be made and guaranteed by the divorced and shall continue until his former spouse shall contract a new marriage, without detriment to the allowance that shall be fixed upon each child and which must also be guaranteed.

The law shall impose adequate penalties upon those who, in case of divorce, separation, or any other circumstance, shall try to flout or evade this responsibility.
 

ART. 44. Parents are obliged to support, tend, educate, and instruct their children, and the latter to respect and assist their parents. The law shall assure the fulfillment of these duties with guarantees and adequate penalties.

Children born out of wedlock to a person who at the time of conception may have been able to contract marriage, have the same rights and duties as are stipulated in the preceding paragraph, except for what the law prescribes in regard to inheritance. For this purpose, children born out of wedlock, of married persons, when the latter acknowledge the children, or when the filiation is established by declaration, shall also have equal rights. The law shall regulate the investigation of paternity.

All qualifications on the nature of filiation are abolished. No statement may be made differentiating between births, either upon the civil status of the parents in the written records of the latter, or in any registry of baptism or certificate referring to the filiation.
 

ART. 45. Budget, insurance, and social assistance shall be employed in accordance with standards of protection for the family, established in this Constitution.

Childhood and youth are protected from exploitation and from moral and material neglect. The State, the Provinces, and the municipalities shall organize adequate institutions for this purpose.
 

ART. 46. Within the restrictions stipulated in this Constitution, Cubans shall be free to bequeath one-half of their inheritance.

ART. 47. Culture in all of its manifestations constitutes a primary interest of the State. Scientific investigation, artistic expression, and the publication of their results, as well as education, are, in this regard, free, without prejudice to the inspection and regulation by the State, established by law.
 

ART. 48. Primary instruction is obligatory for minors of school age, and its dispensation shall be the obligation of the State, without lessening the co-operative responsibility falling to municipal initiative.

Both primary and pre-primary instruction shall be gratuitous when imparted by the State, Province, or municipality. The necessary teaching materials shall likewise be gratuitous.

Secondary basic instruction, and all higher instruction imparted by the State or the municipalities, exclusive of specialized pre-university and university studies, shall be gratuitous.

In institutes created, or which may be created in the future in the pre-university category, the law may maintain or establish the payment of a moderate co-operation fee for matriculation, that shall be designated for the upkeep of each establishment.

As far as possible, the State shall offer fellowships for the enjoyment of non-gratuitous official instruction to students who, having determined their vocations and having exceptional aptitudes, are prevented, by insufficiency of resources, from carrying on such studies on their own account.
 

ART. 49. The State shall maintain a system of schools for adults, especially dedicated to the elimination and prevention of illiteracy; rural schools predominantly practical, organized with a view to the interest of small communities of agricultural, maritime, or any other type; art schools, and technical institutes of agriculture, industry, and commerce, oriented in a manner to respond to the necessities of the national economy. All of these kinds of instruction shall be gratuitous and the Provinces and municipalities shall collaborate in their maintenance to the extent of their means.
 

ART. 50. The State shall maintain the normal schools necessary for the technical preparation of the teachers in charge of primary instruction in the public schools. No other educational center may issue degrees for primary teachers, with the exception of the schools of pedagogy of the universities.

The previous provisions do not exclude the right of schools created by law, to issue pedagogical degrees relating to special matters that may be the subject of their instruction.

Holders of these pedagogical degrees of special capacity shall have the right, with full preference, to occupy vacant positions or those that may be created in the respective schools and specialized fields.

The degree of master of economy, arts, domestic and industrial sciences, issued by the school of the household, is required for the instruction of women in domestic economy, cutting and needlework, and women's industries.
 

ART. 51. Public instruction shall be organized in an organic form, so that adequate articulation and continuity may obtain for all grades, including the higher. The official system shall provide vocational stimulus and development in the light of the multiplicity of the professions, and taking into account the cultural and practical necessities of the Nation.

All instruction, public or private, shall be inspired by a spirit of Cubanism and human solidarity, tending to form in the minds of those being educated a love for their Fatherland, its democratic institutions, and for all those who have fought for one or the other.
 

ART. 52. All public instruction shall be provided for in the budgets of the State, the Provinces, or the municipalities, and shall be under the technical and administrative direction of the Minister of Education, with the exception of departments of instruction that, because of their special character, are subordinate to other ministries.

The budget of the ministry of education shall not be less than the normal budget of any other ministry except in case of emergency declared by law.

The monthly salary of a teacher of primary instruction must not be, in any case, less than a millionth part of the total budget of the Nation.

Persons holding official teaching positions have the rights and duties of public officials.

Appointments, promotions, transfers, and dismissals of public teachers and professors, inspectors, technicians, and other school officials, shall be regulated in such a manner that no considerations other than strictly technical ones may apply, but this stipulation shall not affect the vigilance over the moral conduct to which such officials must conform.

All directorial and supervisory positions in official primary instruction shall be discharged by technical graduates of the corresponding university faculties.
 

ART. 53. The University of Havana is autonomous and shall be governed in accordance with its statutes, and with the law upon which the said statutes must be based.

The State shall contribute to the creation of University endowment funds and to the support of said University, appropriating for this purpose the amount fixed by law in its national budgets.
 

ART. 54. Official or private universities and any other institutions and centers of higher learning may be created. The conditions by which they may be regulated shall be determined by law.
 

ART. 55. Official instruction shall be laic. Centers of private instruction shall be subject to regulation and inspection by the State; however, in all cases the right shall be preserved of imparting, separate from technical instruction, the religious education that may be desired.
 

ART. 56. In all teaching centers, public or private, the teaching of Cuban literature, history and geography, civics and the Constitution, must be imparted by teachers who are Cuban by birth, and by means of textbooks by authors who have the same qualification.
 

ART. 57. In order to exercise the teaching profession it is necessary to prove one's qualifications in the form stipulated by law.

The law shall determine what non-teaching professions, arts, or offices require degrees for their practice, and the manner in which such degrees must be obtained. The State shall assure employment preference in positions of public service to citizens officially prepared with the proper specialized training.
 

ART. 58. The State shall regulate by means of a law the preservation of the cultural treasures of the Nation and its artistic and historical riches, and shall likewise give special protection to the national monuments and to places notable for their natural beauty or for their recognized artistic or historical value.
 

ART. 59. A national council of education and culture shall be created which, presided over by the Minister of Education, shall be in charge of the encouragement, technical direction, or inspection of the educational, scientific, and artistic activities of the Nation.

The opinion of this body shall be heard by the Congress on every bill relating to matters within its competence.

Positions on the national council of education and culture shall be honorary and uncompensated.