Is that in all of North America, Frank?
keith
frank theriault wrote:
On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 21:01:41 -0500, Mark Roberts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
<snip>
Actually, Lisa and I have lived together long enough that we might actually be considered married under common law. In some places. Don't know about Pennsylvania.
Technically, she's my Personal Pathologist and Fashion Consultant :)
Common law marriage no longer exists. Marriage Statutes, which were proclaimed into law in the late 1800's in most jurisdictions, all specifically abolished Common Law marriage, so that only marriage sanctioned by the state was legal marriage.
In the 60's and 70's, the term common law marriage was more or less revived as a way of saying "we consider ourselves married, and act just like a married couple, but this union hasn't been sanctioned by the state". This clearly harkened back to the days prior to Marriage Statutes, when, depending on the jurisdiction, judges would ex post facto declare a marriage to be a legal one if (for instance) the couple lived together for a number of years, had a child together, etc, etc. Problem is, the "rules" for common law marriage varied so much from court district to court district, it was hard to know whether one was married or not. What if a couple who'd been living together for 4 years in a district where they had a three year rule, then moved to a district where there was a 5 year rule? Were they "unmarried" for a year? So, for national certainty, Marriage Statutes made sense.
What we think of today as "common law marriage", really means nothing more than "we've been cohabiting for a period of time, or under such conditions that the State has said that one or both of us have acquired certain rights or responsibilities WRT monetary support or division of property should we separate". The term common law marriage is a colloquial one that currently has no basis at law.
cheers, frank
