And here in the “(cough…Bible Belt)…cough”:
The law was ruled unconstitutional but she didn’t get her job back.
Do unmarried couples who live together have to wear bags over their heads the way women do in those other religous fundamentalist countries? :smack:
This thread really does surprise the hell out of me - not only is common-law marriage not common in the US, it’s not even allowed, and even co-habitation is illegal in seven states, apparently. Here in Alberta, it seems like becoming common-law married is as easy as checking the “married” box on your income tax forms.
Common law marriage used to be the law everywhere in the common law of individual states, but over a period of time – starting in the 1960s or 1970s, perhaps? – most states began eliminating common law marriage by statute.
My guess is that a lot of it was in reaction to the Lee Marvin “palimony” case, but really I know very little about this issue.
The anti-co-habitation laws are rarely enforced. It becomes news when someone is made subject to them.
Actual prosecutions may be rare (like with adultery laws or the struck-down anti-sodomy laws), but those laws can give landlords a handy excuse to evict tenants, employers to fire workers they don’t like, judge’s to deny parole, or deny people custody or visitation from their kids.
WTF? In what states is it illegal to co-habitate?
See the article link provided above by Ignatz.
I grew up in the 80s in Ohio and there was definitely a stigma attached to children born out of wedlock. I remember a girl named Beth who was called Bethy Bastard by some of our more unsavory students. Also, a lot of parents wouldn’t let their daughters stay the night at her house because they felt Beth’s mother might have one of her boyfriends there. She wrote about this on Facebook not long ago and the effects it had on her growing up. Very sad stuff.
I won’t be having children so I honestly don’t see much need in marriage. I’m not saying that I’ll never get married, but it isn’t something I invest any time thinking about. That said, if I was going to have kids I would definitely want to be married.
Many people have talked about the reasons for that. I’d like to know what your reasons are for thinking that if you were going to have kids, you would definitely want to be married.
I hate even putting my brain into the mode of thinking like a parent!
If I were to have a child it would be a planned thing and I’d want to be sure I was with someone somewhat like-minded. I think that ideally* a child should have two parents at home. Raising a child is probably the biggest job going and I think having two parents there every day in the home probably makes things a bit easier.
Of course divorce can happen to ruin the best intentions, but I’d want to at least start with the “traditional” family arrangement and hope it could stay that way happily.
I could go on but the point is entirely moot because hell would freeze over and sell snow cones before I would have a child.
*no need for people to tell me their stories of how they didn’t have two parents/their kid doesn’t have two parents and they are fine… good for you. I’m talking what I think is ideal
Last time I checked (and admittedly this was years ago), the US Passport Authority does not recognize a name change unless you provide them with a court document of some sort. Either a legal change-of-name, or a marriage license. Other government agencies aren’t this picky, but I’ve been using my mother’s maiden name for 10 years, and despite the fact that it’s on my drivers license, social security card, bank accounts, etc., I can’t get a passport that matches my DL until I pay the government $400+ for a piece of paper that acknowledges I’m allowed to use my own damn name. Sigh.
I’ve been trying to think back eight years to when I changed my maiden name to my husband’s last name, and all I can remember is that it was so easy that nothing really sticks out in my mind. I have a birth certificate in one name, and a passport and all my i.d. in another, and none of that is a problem.
If my SO and I had decided to have children, I would have wanted to get married. Why?
It’s not an attempt to “tie” my SO into the relationship or into parenting. It would totally be about the legal side of things. Insurance, medical/health care, school and care for the child in case something happened to one or both of us.
The US system really is set up assuming people are or will get married. If you chose not to, you have to think about what you are NOT getting automatically, and decide if you need to do something about it.
[quote=acsenry]
Of course there are no guarantees. There are only relative degrees of security. But the people saying “It’s only a piece of paper; all that matters is what I feel” are choosing to be selectively perceptive. A family is not a purely private arrangement. It’s a unit of society and that makes interactions with society important. [/q]
How are I and my SO any less of a family, because we have chosen not to get married? We are an economic unit. We are a social unit. As far as our mortgage lender is concerned, we are a legal unit. 95% of our neighbors over the years haven’t known we aren’t wed. Many of the people I work with don’t know. It’s not like I run around introducing myself “Hi, I’m ToC and we’re not married.” Most of society doesn’t know if you have a signed document stating that you are married. Their perceptions are based on how you interact with them and with your partner.
To save you and others time, Virginia, West Virginia, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi and North Dakota. BTW, when it was illegal in NC, it applied only to opposite-sex couples.
Sidetracked:
I just spent this entire thread thinking Joe Who must have been PM decades ago because I don’t recognize the name. Why is Joe Clark nicknamed Joe Who? I certainly know who he is now that someone actually used his last name.
I think it’s because he had such a short prime ministership. Less than a year.
I don’t know if it was first in the Toronto Star, but I do recall “Joe Who” being used during the battle between Clark and Trudeau.
The Other Shoe and I have been together almost a decade, and we are not married. (He’s male, I’m female, so legally, we could.)
It’s not that we have a specific reason to NOT get married; it’s just that there’s never been a reason for us to do it. You can call it laziness or inertia, if you like… but we’ve never, ever doubted our committment to each other. Getting married wouldn’t change our level of committment - it would just mean an even bigger hassle if we did happen to change our minds down the road. (Right now, the thought of uncoupling our respective CD collections is enough to make me stick around even if I was entertaining the notion of splitting up! :))
We get quite a bit of “Why aren’t you married yet?” and would probably have more if we weren’t so introverted and were around more strangers. I’ve learned that nobody’s really interested in a spiel about why we’re not married yet, so I usually just borrow the line I heard originally attributed to Brad Pitt: “We’re not gonna get married until *everyone *can get married.” Usually satisfies any busybody who’s nosing around my personal life. It bothers me a teensy tiny bit to think that they think I’m making a big political statement with my life, but frankly, it bothers me way more that they’re asking stupid intrusive questions in the first place.
Yes, it had to do with the fact that he came out of nowhere to win the PC nomination – he was no heir apparent, he hadn’t been groomed by Stanfield or anything – and everyone was surprised when he won.
When he actually beat Trudeau and became PM, Macleans had a picture of him on the front cover, and in bold letters, it said “Joe Clark, That’s Who!”