There was a case on Cape Cod where a man and his girlfriend went to one of the islands, maybe the Dominican Republic, and got married. It turned out that the person who married them had been hired by the husband to pretend he was a minister or justice of the peace. Ten years later the husband took off with another lady (widow and heiress but not Thereza) and in the divorce proceedings the husband announced that they weren't even married! Surprise! The wife got something but not the equitable distribution that would have occurred if they had been married. I think Jacob Atwood might have been the lawyer for that case too.
Good thing they didn't live in:
Alabama
Colorado
District of Columbia
Georgia (if created before 1/1/97)
Idaho (if created before 1/1/96)
Iowa
Kansas
Montana
New Hampshire (for inheritance purposes only)
Ohio (if created before 10/10/91)
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Texas
Utah
Common law marriage...
I hope for his sake he wan't filing his taxes as married. I think the IRS would like to have a talk with him, and it'll probably be more expensive than if he'd just given his wife half.