Not really, no. Most states used to recognize common-law marriages, but that number has steadily gone down. When I took civics in high school some 18 years ago, we were one of about a dozen states that still recognized them, and you had to a) not be legally married to anyone else b) live together for 7 years straight and c) present yourself as being married. If you didn’t meet all three of these criteria, you were just shacking up and had no legal rights to make medical or legal decisions for one another. And even at that, we stopped recognizing common-law marriages sometime while I was in college.
A little quick googling shows that 15 states (and DC) still recognize it, but 4 of those have stopped recognizing new common-law marriages (they grandfathered in existing ones), and one only recognizes it for inheiritance purposes–your spouse gets all your shit if you die intestate, but she can’t make any legal or medical decisions if you’re incapacitated.
That last bit is something that can cause a lot of strife and ugliness if the partner and the family aren’t all on the same page, or when the family disapproves of the relationship. I’ve heard stories of partners being barred from hospital rooms where someone was dying, having no input into end-of-life decisions, being thrown out of their homes when a partner died or was incapacitated because the house was only in the partner’s name, all sorts of nasty shit. And without some clear-cut legal relationship, you don’t really have any sort of legal recourse.
You can establish legal rights to make decisions for an incapacitated partner without getting married, but it’s very time-consuming and expensive–it can take several months and thousands of dollars in legal fees, as opposed to the $27 and 10 minutes it took us to get married.
Given all that, I really can’t fathom why anyone would live together long-term in this country and not get married.
I’m pretty sure this is not true or is one of those “it depends” things. I’m on my father’s health insurance. (Actually, I think it’s his wife’s health insurance.) He and my mother never married. I’ve never even met the guy. Which makes it really interesting when the doctor’s office wants the insurance holder’s SSN. Explaining why I can’t get it is kind of fun.
Huh? I’ve never in my life heard of a father who was not married to the mother not being able to cover a child on his insurance (provided the plan allows for family coverage, anyway). That makes no sense whatsoever. And as for fathers not having visitation rights, I’ve known plenty of women who had children out of wedlock and had all sorts of formal legal visitation arrangements with the fathers of their children. That’s the bread and butter of Family Court.
Mothers do not have automatic legal custody of children, and fathers are not normally deprived of any right to contact with their children. That’s crazy talk.
The answer as to how it is viewed varies widely depending on geographic location and economic class.
Where I am and with the people I know, living together without being married is not a big deal provided that there are no children involved. Once kids comes in to the picture, things seem to change and once the couple decide to have kids, they will also plan a wedding.
Here in the US, there are advantages in terms of inheritance rights, the ability to be covered under a spouse’s medical insurance, and the right to make medical decisions for the spouse should said spouse become incapacitated.
Yeah, that’s pretty much my experience too, though there is a certain amount of wondering with very long-term couples (say, 3+ years) what exactly they are waiting for if they seem to intend to spend their lives together anyway. If you’re going to be a couple for the very long term, why not have all the social and legal advantages that go with it?
Not that I’m necesdsarily saying that that * should* be the state of affairs (no pun intended); I’m saying that it basically is, at least where I live and among the people I hang out with.
Excellent point. In my circles (mostly white, middle-class, fairly liberal by US standards), it’s very much expected that you’ll be married before you have kids. Nobody aspires to be a single parent. I know a few people in long-term relationships who have children together, but they’re a small minority. As others have said, if you’re in it for the long haul, why wouldn’t you get married?
It’s not necessarily connected with religion, either. The *New Yorker * recently had a very interesting article about the fact that secular and non-evangelical Americans are more likely to have stable marriages and children within wedlock than are Americans who identify as evangelical.
I’m baffled by this entire thread. I’m a born and raised Southerner, and I don’t know very many people who view having a child out of wedlock as a particularly big deal. The idea that we’re 50 (or 30) years behind the UK in this regard is a whole lot of horse shit.
I have several close friends who have children with women they have never been married to, one of whom lived in the UK for several years. His mother is an Episcopal Rector. He confirms my claim of horse shit.
Generally speaking, no. “Common law marriage” has been eliminated in most states. Just as significant, insurance companies, courts of law, and other significant decision makers don’t recognize de facto relationships. If you are making a claim for “wrongful death,” for example, you had better be married, or you’re not going to get much money. Actuaries calculate the “value” of a spouse much, much higher than the value of an unmarried partner.
That’s ridiculous. You can give a medical power of attorney to anyone, married or not. If you check into a hospital in Wisconsin, they will hand you a form if you tell them you haven’t already made such arrangements. It costs nothing at all.
Yes, I would like to point out that the U.S. is not “30 years behind” in regard to de facto relationships - it is affirmatively moving in the opposite direction. Recognition of common law marriages (with attendant suite of legal rights) used to be much more common than it is today.
Because of the host of legal rights that come with marriage, it does appear to me, that people who have a long term committed relationship and children are perverse in refusing those benefits.
If the legal benefits were not present, I wouldn’t think of it one way or the other.
There are different situations that lead to out-of-wedlock, and I think they tend to get different reactions from people:
Accidental pregnancy/not enough of a relationship between the parents for them to consider getting married: I think the stigma of this is a lot less than it used to be. People tend to think that “shotgun” weddings are unwise and don’t last (no claim here as to whether they do or not, but I think that’s the perception). If the woman is an adult, stable, working, etc., no one is going to necessarily expect her to get an abortion or give the baby up for adoption.
Woman getting older/decides to have a baby on her own so she doesn’t miss her chance: People are pretty understanding & tolerant of this, I think…again, much more so than they used to be. They might comment that it’s going to be tough on her, or whatnot (same as in the scenario above), but I don’t think people are going to think it’s necessarily bad. Some might think it’s not right if the kid’s going to grow up completely without a father figure, but in general they won’t condemn her for it.
In both these situations, though, I thnk people feel more comfortable about it if & when the adults in question do get married (even if not to the other parent), because they feel it creates a family unit. On the other hand, I think they tend to feel negative in these circumstances if the mother just moves in with another guy…like marriage creates stability, but the living together seems to create instability. Not sure if that’s really true, I guess it depends on how long the guy plans to stick around, and whether it’s a habit she gets into with a succession of different guys.
Two people live together/stable, but unmarried relationship/decide to have kids (as the OP is doing): I think here is where Hostile Dialect’s comments are pretty much on-target. I think that people do kind of wonder why a couple doesn’t get married in this circumstance…if you are going to stay together, why not? Folks in my experience tend to think that if a couple is together for a long time but don’t get married that one or both of them is trying to avoid committment in some way. And if you are trying to avoid committment, why have kids/buy a house/get a dog? It’s kind of a disconnect in peoples’ minds. Of course, avoiding committment may not at all be the reason that 2 people decide not to get married, or never get around to getting married, but I think that’s the perception people have.
I would say that the assumption everyone makes if you live together and have children is you are married. No one asks for proof, if anyone cares socially, they’d need to ask. I say this as a woman who seldom wears a wedding ring, has two children and a different last name than my husband. People assume we are married. In our case they are right. But I’m having a hard time imagining where “we didn’t bother to get married” might even come up in a conversation - unless the unmarried couple decided to make it a matter of conversation.
The issue comes in when you start looking at employment benefits, legal rights, etc. For the military, this is a big issue because of their processes. Military spouses and dependants get certain benefits, but you need to be married to get them. And the military also has a tradition of honor. Marrying the mother of your children is still seen as a honorable thing to do in the traditional sense (probably doesn’t help that much of the military is pretty conservative - sticking it to the man by rejecting his old fashioned ideas about marriage isn’t going over.)
I should add - if you’ve known them a long time, you probably know that they never got married. I have a cousin with two kids by her partner that she has never married - don’t know why. But the family treats him as her spouse - although once in a while the “did they ever get married” question comes up. If you’ve known them that long, they are likely a relative or a friend. Americans tend to be pretty accepting of the ‘moral lapses’ of their OWN relations. And a friend you don’t approve of you drop.
IANAL either, but I think it very much depends on what aspect of the law is being dealt with. Matters of equality have created precedents in some situations, whereas others, such as inheritence, are more rigid.
I think this is perhaps a little misleading, albeit unintentionally - it’s also still common parlance to refer to one’s spouse as wife or husband, too!
For how many of them was conception a pre-meditated act for both parties? I think it’s still pretty rare for people to try to get pregnant together without getting married first.
As far as the military goes, it’s not really about the kid’s coverage, but about the mom’s. Birth is expensive, and military medical coverage is good. Assuming that most women that get knocked up by a member of the military do not have the same, I’d think offering to get hitched at least until the baby was born would be the polite thing.
