We already have “common law” wife in the US.
Sorry, CL! I asked the question and we must have posted a second or two apart.
Not in Connecticut, I don’t know about other states.
Not in every state.
Only in states that have not changed the common law we inherited from England at the time of Independence.
Actually, common law marriage was a wise institution that legally recognized the fact that marriage is neither a state nor a religious institution, but a natural institution in human society, that stable cohabitation by a man and a woman was the key feature of that institution and that the state (or Crown) had an interest in keeping such relationships stable (mostly for the sake of any children engendered). It is precisely the arrogation to the state of the purported authority to redefine non-state social institutions that is the most odious feature of the drive for "same-sex marriage". It's actually to see Quebec catching up with the Anglosphere in creating an analogue of common law marriage.