What Is Common-Law Marriage?

Marriage and family laws can sometimes be complicated to understand, depending on where you live. Common-law marriage is something particularly bothersome for some people, as the concept varies greatly from one place to another and there’s no unified situation wherever you’d go. In general, common-law marriage refers to a situation where a couple is living together as married without having legally married themselves. And even though some jurisdictions may recognize this easily without any hassle, this isn’t the case in other instances and you should do your research very carefully if you want to engage in common-law marriage with your spouse.

First, as we mentioned above, the primary factor with regards to your common-law marriage options is your place of residence. For example, US citizens from the states of Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Texas and a number of others are allowed to legally conduct common-law marriage. Some other states recognize the practice as well though not directly, even though the conditions for couples married in a common-law engagement remain mostly good.

You should also know that a common-law marriage can’t be broken up with a divorce, as there’s no common-law divorce. If you’ve been bound by a common-law marriage and would like to end it, you’ll have to file in court for dissolution of marriage, even though in a few states the marriage can be simply annulled if it doesn’t get legally established during the period of separation. In the end, research is what you’re going to need to find out what your options are.