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I would argue the contrary. The law does protect cohabitees. It is married people whom it does not protect; they can get "taken to the cleaners" by their spouse (aided by the courts) upon a divorce. Still, you can say that, by getting married, they have implicitly agreed for the courts to have that jurisdiction on a divorce. Someone who lives with someone else has not (in the absence of any contract) agreed to anything.

If people are mistakenly inclined to think they have rights as cohabitees that they do not have, would not a public education campaign be a good way to address that? The topic could even be added to the national curriculum: if children are forced to spend several hours a day at an educational institute until they turn 16, we may as well at least ensure that they come out of the process with a few nuggets of knowledge that may be of use to them.

One aspect that is rarely properly addressed (if addressed at all) when talking about giving rights to cohabitees, is that it would give rise to all sorts of disputes about whether people were in fact cohabiting, with one member of the putative "couple" (the one that stood to gain financially from it, obviously) arguing that they were, and the other person (or their estate, if dead) arguing that they were not. You'd better be careful who you take in as a lodger, or what homeless friend you take pity on and allow to put up with you for a while, because if they're in your house for too long, they could end up claiming at least half of the house.