I Don’t![Canada-'automatically married by the state, against their will']

The Lee Marvin case was even more interesting. California does not recognize common law marriage. Triola sued for so-called “palimony” on a contract theory, that Marvin had promised to support her for life. The court found insufficient evidence of such a contract, but the concept is now recognized in California law.

Doesn’t the U.S. have “common law marriage” that is similar? By common law... I thought if a couple lived together for a period of time, they were seen as “married” in the eyes of the State.

It depends on what state you live in, I know in Texas we have "common law" or as the state calls it, "informal marriage".

My admin had to go through it when she and her "husband" split up. One of the things that helped her, was they had never co-mingled funds and his name was on everything.

It was a mess.

Evidently not.

“Under Texas law there is no required period of time of cohabitation and an informal marriage can occur if the couple lives together one day if the other elements, (an agreement to be married and holding out as married to the public) have also occurred.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common-law_marriage_in_the_United_States#Texas

I’ll stick with “virtually every” state then. Or at least most. Lots. Whatever. I couldn’t remember if it was still alive in KY, TX, TN, WV. CO surprised me, but that’s cool.

I should also clarify that despite its alleged drawbacks, I am a fan of common law marriage in that it reduces the state involvement in the family.

“common law marriage” was outlawed by statute in virtually every (if not every) US jurisdiction in the early to mid 20th century. The theory was that CLM created more problems than it solved. In particular, problems of bigamy, divorce, inheritance, probate, custody of children, rape (remember that in some jurisdictions it was, until recently, legally impossible for a husband to rape his wife), and evidence (marital privilege in some places permits spouses to exclude each other’s testimony). Where the state has an efficient licensing system, the theory goes, we don’t need to spend a lot of effort to determine whether people are married or not.

LOL, well, not quite. Common law anything is not recognized by statute anything - they're two completely different legal environments. But they don't necessarily cancel each other out. Common law principles such as common law marriage still hold perfectly fine - it's just that administrative law (statutes) don't recognize it in their "courts." That's not the same as it being "outlawed." It's not criminal, it's just not legally acknowledged within administrative jurisdiction.

Then again, neither are natural human beings acting in their personal capacities.

So there's that little issue, too.

In any state if you want to become common law married, you can go to Texas, sign in as man and wife with intent to be married, and your home state has to recognize it.

Here is a ruling on common law marriage.

“The tradition of common law marriage was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States in Meister v. Moore (96 U.S. 76 (1877)), which ruled that Michigan had not abolished common law marriage merely by producing a statute establishing rules for the solemnization of marriages. Since Michigan did not require marriages to be solemnized, the court held, the right to marry that existed at common law existed until state law affirmatively changed it. The Court held that in order to bar common law marriage, a state’s general marriage statute must indicate that no marriage would be valid unless the enumerated statutory requirements were followed.”

It is still legal in these states “A common law marriage can still be contracted in the District of Columbia and ten states: Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, and Texas included.[21][22] Additionally, New Hampshire law provides for posthumous recognition of common law marriage in probate cases; and Utah will recognize a common law marriage if the parties get a judicial decree to the effect a common law-marriage exists or existed between them. Otherwise, common law marriages can no longer be contracted in any of the other states. All states, however, recognize a common law marriage that was validly contracted in another state under the principles of comity and their choice of law/conflict of laws rules.”

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