What exactly is Common Law Marriage?
I assume its mostly used in legal actions, so the second question is: In what type of legal actions would common law marriage be claimed?
Common Law marriages aren’t so common anymore but I think a few states still possess laws that supports them.
A Common Law marriage basically says that two people are married even if they’ve never been officially married. Usually the couple in question has to behave in a way that married couples do (mostly just living together will do it) for some length of time…I think 6 or 7 years is a common timespan where such a thing is implemented.
It is used to invoke divorce proceedings. The guy who has shacked-up with his girlfriend for the past 10 years and drops her for a teeny-bopper may find himself in court dividing his assets just as if he had been married to the woman he is leaving even though he never ‘officially’ married her (presumably it works in reverse as well…i.e. a woman leaving a man).
A common law marriage is an old term for living together with going through a marriage ceremony.
Supposedly, if you lived with someone a certain number of years, it could be considered a “common law marriage” and the partners would have the rights of a married couple (i.e., if one died, the other would inherit as a spouse). However, that may be a legend.
The term was also used as a polite way of saying “shacking up.” The man who lived with the murdered woman might be described as her “common law husband,” for instance. Once living together lost its stigma, the term fell into disuse.
I shouldn’t have said that. Common Law marriage is used anytime there is an issue where being married to someone would be relevant. Usually such thngs are relevant when it comes time to determine the disposition of assets…be they for debts, as part of an estate, divorce or what have you.
I don’t know if a state will thrust it on a couple to impose their tax code or something differently (i.e different rules for married couples than single individuals) but who knows…I wouldn’t put too much past the IRS.
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“Common law marriages” are marriages that are not solemnized in the usual way (through a civil or religious ceremony) but that nevertheless consitute a marriage under the law. The factors for what makes a common-law marriage varies by jurisdiction, but generally in order to be common-law married you must:
- Agree to a permanent and exclusive marital-type relationship (by ‘marital-type’ I mean, one with sex);
- Cohabitate for a given period of time (usually five or seven years); and
- Assume marital duties, like mutual support.
Many (about half of the) U.S. states have abolished common-law marriages under the rationale that if you want to be married, go get married, and if you don’t do that, then you ain’t married.
Marital status is obviously important when a relationship is breaking up, for purposes of establishing support obligations and dividing assets and debts, but it can also be important for things like insurance, or decision-making in the event one person becomes incapacitated.
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Yes, even more you friend, kinda platonic one, is something very handy, a Webster’s dictionary:
1 : a marriage recognized in some jurisdictions and based on the parties’ agreement to consider themselves married and sometimes also on their cohabitation
2 : the cohabitation of a couple even when it does not constitute a legal marriage
maybe not in Louisana but don’t quote me on that.
In the District of Columbia–so says my Property professor–two people can be common law married simply by informing a third person of their desire to live together as husband and wife.
I can’t find that specific claim on Westlaw, however. A common-law marriage is legally valid in D.C. if proven by a preponderance of the evidence. Robinson v. Evans, 554 A.2d. 332, 337 (D.C. 1989). Cohabitation and a mutual agreement to be live as husband and wife is enough to consummate a common-law marriage. Hoage v. Much Bros. Const. Co., 50 F.2d. 983, 985 (D.C. Ct. App. 1931).
Nothin about only needing to tell a third party. I’ll have to ask my professor about it.
All states have statutes providing for ceremonial marriages. Then how is a CL marriage possible? you ask. Eleven states recognize CL marriages but their rationales differ. In a few states, the statute specifically provides that the statute is not to be construed as abrogating CL marriages. In the other states, the rationale is this: Statutes changing the common law are to be strictly construed. If the statute does not expressly eliminate CL marriages, the courts have held (in those states) that the common law concerning marriages has not been abrogated.
BTW, there is no time limit in SC for a CL marriage. Merely intending to be married and open yourself out to the public will suffice. Note, that this is to the public, not one or two individuals. Of course, the other provisions for marriages must obtain: the parties must have the capacity to marry, etc.
Common law marriage is much more wide spread in Canada, though I only know of the tax implications. In order to claim a person as a commonlaw spouse, you two have to have been living together in a conjugal relationship for at least one year if there are not kids, or if you do have a kid then you can claim it right away. You two can basically claim the same spousal amounts in relation to each other’s income as regular married people can, and a few other minor benefits. But yes, it’s basically a better sounding version of shacking up.
Just FYI, you can also use common-law status in a state that allows it as a way for your partner to get health insurance, joint auto insurance, etc.
California does not have common law marriage. However, California might recognize a common law marriage from another state. Is that complicated enough yet? You need to check the state you reside in to discover under what circumstances a common law marriage is created. Urban legands about this subject abound. Some states, like Texas have registers where you sign a piece of paper and you are married. Some, you just have to live together for a period of time. Some social security cases have held that people who lived together and then travelled through a CL state and registed in a motel as man and wife were married. If you think that you might be a common law spouse, check with a local lawyer.
GADARENE, in some jurisdictions you have to “hold yourself out to be married,” but in others you do not.
Washington, like California, does not have common-law marriage, but recognizes CL marriages established in other jurisdictions. The rationale is (I assume) that if you’re married there, well then sure, you’re married here, too. But you can’t live in Washington and become CL married, not if you live together for 50 years.
Aren’t there some religions that don’t have ceremonies. The man and woman just live together. How do states get around that?
Oklahoma has the same law as the District of Columbia; you have to be eligible to be married to each other (i.e. of opposite genders, of legal age, not already married to someone else or during a legal separation) and you have to state that you are married to the other person, to a witness.
The case I heard of where common-law marriage came up, is where an older man had taken his girlfriend to a cabin in the Arbuckles, run into some friends there, and to avoid saying “my girlfriend and I came here to shack up” he introduced her as “the new Mrs. so and so, we were recently married.” Some months later, he passed away, and she brought in the witnesses to try to claim half his property as his widow.
I did much the same thing (claim marriage to someone I was engaged to, to avoid looking improper in front of his roommate’s parents who came over and caught us…um…in flagrante delicto) about a year before I actually got married, but our subsequent marriage and divorce made it a bit of a moot point. I wouldn’t say that again now.
Corr
Under the “full faith and credit” clause of the Const., a state must recognize the validity of a marriage consummated in another state, whether CL or not.
Under the common law there was no time period for the marriage to be valid, and I believe that’s the law in all the states here. Not sure on that. Remember, if the CL marriage is established, it’s a marriage, just as valid and binding as a ceremonial marriage, with all the concomitants and appurtenances thereunto belonging, including the need for an official divorce, not just separation, to end it.
I don’t know about the Social Security cases, DPWhite refers to. If you have a cite or two, please post it. Social Security law will follow the law of the state concerning validity of marriages. If a state considers them married, Social Security will.
Cecil Adams discusses common-law marraige in the column Are ships’ captains allowed to marry people at sea?
Jodi, I always thought that “holding forth” (along with “present promise” and “cohabitation”) was a requirement for common law marriages wherever they were recognized in the States. Where is it not?
DPWhite, Texas does have a procedure for registering
Finally, unless anything has changed in the last couple years, I assume the list of American jurisdictions from my Family Law book is still accurate on where common law marriages are recognized: D.C., Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, and Texas.
Oops. That should say “Texas has a procedure for registering common law marriages with the state, but it is not a requirement for a common law marriage to be valid.” Sorry, forgot my own last-second addition.
In Texas, if I remember correctly, common law marriage has nothing to do with how long you have shacked up, unless one of the spouses has decided to forego a career, which then he/she may be entitled to compensation. All a couple has to do is to declare themselves married. If you pick up some skank at a bar and check into a motel as Mr.&Mrs., you’re hitched! My partner at work has filed tax forms declaring his girlfriend and her daughter on his forms for deduction purposes. I have told him “you are legally married (dumbass)” but he does not seem to get it.