Common Law marriage is of great dispute here in the United States.
In some states you can be legally married under common law marriage if you did not apply for a marriage license or had a ceremony performed. It allows you to have the same rights as a traditional married couple without going through the process of filling out the required paperwork. This is interesting to note that in 8 states in the United States common law marriage is still legal.
In most of these states all you have to do is be over the age of 18 call each other husband and wife for a set number of years and there you are. You are happily married.
In some states common law marriages are not recognized. I think it is interesting that in some states you can be married and other's you would not be considered married.
I think that in not creating a national requirement for marriage creates an opportunity for different organizations to deny marriage rights based on the fact that that specific marriage is not legal in that particular state. I think it is valuable to the nation in that all states and most things each citizen interacts with every day is funded via federal funds. I think that with common law marriage there needs to be either a common ground because each of the 8 states listed above have different requirements for the act of marriage.
This is really interested so do you think the federal government should define marriage laws so organizations can't discriminate against them?
ReplyDeleteI really like how in this post you stated your opinion, and what you think the best option is for AMERICA!!! (your blog is all about marriage in the usa!)
ReplyDeletecool post!
Absolutely Joey. I think that if we can create a stable definition for things we leave to much room for interpretation and also denial. I think that to protect families it is necessary to define marriage.
ReplyDeleteIn a particular case one I can remember one wife and their adopted children were denied access to the dying wives deathbed because the State of Florida did not recognize there marriage even though it was legal in Massachusetts.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=7633058
Read more here.
With changes in the constitution we can prevent these things from happening to families across the country.