To not be able to believe that intelligent people think that common law marriage still exists?

Then I hope they have all their legal paperwork, house ownership, wills, pension nominations, life assurance cover etc etc in place.

Good luck to your godmother, clearly a well advised woman.

Sadly, in my experience, "it's a massive assumption that people don’t understand or are a bit thick because they haven’t got married" accurately sums up most common law spouses' view.

There is a will registration service available in England.

It is called "The National Will Register" > The National Will Register | The Law Society

Unlike in many European countries, registering a will in England is voluntary rather than mandatory.

to me personally I would consider someone is more capable of independent thinking if they are NOT married.

That doesn't make any sense. Everyone should consider their own circumstances and how the legalities of marriage would affect them. For some people, not being married is foolish.

just to add, I am married, but not for any legal reason at all - I had that all sorted as a long term partner.

You can't have had it all sorted, as there are legal things that only married couples get, like the inheritance tax differences.

It's not quite this.

In medieval England, legally, all an English couple needed to do in order to be married was to declare that they were. 'I, John, take you, Jane, to be my wedded wife' and vice versa.

It was convenient if there were witnesses, as otherwise it was very tricky to prove (you get court cases where it's clear both parties had had sex and one or other of them had been lying about marriage). But it wasn't strictly legally necessary.

Legal quibbles come up when people argue over the form of words (eg. 'I never said we were married; I said I'd love to marry her if I could but I can't!' or whatever.

But there was no obligation to involve the Church or the State in contracting a marriage. This is, in effect, common law marriage.

I don't think it's stupid that people don't know what legal rights they have; I do think it's something (along with relationship health and financial awareness) that ought to be taught more explicitly. If you have never been told any of these things, and everyone around you has been stating them as obvious facts all your life, it isn't surprising if you assume it's all true.

IME there are quite a lot of legal situations people don't know about - simply because they don't encounter them.

I agree about people not understanding that it doesn’t provide the same protections as being married, particularly when it comes to inheritance tax etc.

I do think though that financial organisations such as insurance or benefits does cloud the understanding of the situation. A lot of couples are basically one party with less rights than a lodger staying in a property as a guest, but that removes entitlement to benefits for the individual.

There is no such thing as registering a will.

But yes you can leave a copy with a solicitor and make people aware of that.

Some countries have it.
It actually sounds logical that there could be some legislation around it.
Our legal system is partly based on case law not all written statutes.
There are specific claims that can be brought - e.g. under TOLATA so that can muddy the water of understanding.
It even has an extremely well know phrase attached to it - exactly as you’ve said, “common law marriage”.

So no, I’m not surprised that some people - even intelligent ones - think it is a “thing”.

I do think that people who make financial decisions before checking into exactly what kind of a “thing” it is are foolish. But to think there might be something to check into isn’t foolish.

My niece isn’t married to her partner - I think his parents had a messy divorce. They have two children. They’re an intelligent, mid thirties, couple.

my understanding is only marriage provides a partner with any legal or financial rights

To be fair, you can gain some legal rights by other means, e.g. formal agreements and trusts. But not just by living together.

@Twoshoesnewshoes I don’t think that’s entirely fair.

How many posts are there on here, where a woman has contributed to the finances, paid into a mortgage, brought up the children of the partnership and then finds herself abandoned without any recourse to the assets of that partnership. Or women who feel trapped because their partner is the only person named on the mortgage and they have no assets, despite making significant contribution over the years.

I remember seeing it on a form I used to claim job seekers allowance! Was very annoyed I was turned down for the icons part due to having a partner rather than as I had high savings (ie i wasn't expecting to get it due to that)

Government benefits forms and guides have never used the term "common law marriage". They use the terms "living as married" and "living as married or cohabiting".

Many people who meet partners in later life would want their inheritance to go to their children and not the partner which is one reason they don’t marry.

It sounds like the partner had many years rent-free and got a pay-off too, so she benefitted financially from the relationship, looking on the bright-side.

I remember seeing it on a form I used to claim job seekers allowance! Was very annoyed I was turned down for the icons part due to having a partner rather than as I had high savings (ie i wasn't expecting to get it due to that)

Hopefully changed terminology now.

The government doesn't help as you are treated as if married for benefit purposes.

I heard many people of my parents generation describe themselves as common law spouses. What they meant was that they considered themselves married in terms of commitment, and didn’t need a piece of paper to prove it.

my godmother was one of these, they were both on the deeds of the house and had other legal protection.

its a massive assumption that people don’t understand or are a bit thick because they haven’t got married.

to me personally I would consider someone is more capable of independent thinking if they are NOT married.

just to add, I am married, but not for any legal reason at all - I had that all sorted as a long term partner.

there can be a really sneery tone on her sometimes towards people who aren’t married, it can come across as bitter imo.

I thought that part of the history relates to the monopoly that the Church of England had on performing marriage ceremonies (except for Jews and Quakers) which some people couldn't afford, so they had other arrangements recognised by the community. People use the phrase 'jumping over a broom' which was part of the ceremony. But it's never been legally recognised or part of actual common law.

I'm sure when I was younger, newspapers often used the phrase 'common law husband/wife' to refer to cohabiting, which was still frowned upon by many. Perhaps that added to the confusion.

Being intelligent and having critical thinking skills are 2 different things.

And intelligence and knowledge are different things. You don't really need to be stupid to assume something exists based on the fact that you've heard of it (especially if it used to exist). Giving people on a forum legal advice when you aren't actually sure of your facts is stupid though. And irresponsible.

I had a look whether common law marriage ever actually existed in England and Wales. Wikipedia says (with what appear to be reliable references) "It is sometimes mistakenly claimed that before the Marriage Act 1753 "cohabiting couples would enjoy the protection of a "common-law marriage". In fact, neither the name nor the concept of "common-law marriage" was known at this time."

So it never existed but the belief that it did and does is a long-standing one, seemingly passed down from one generation to another within communities.

Some countries do have common law marriages, or at least situations where unmarried couples have some of the rights of married ones.

Canada:

wiki.clicklaw.bc.ca/index.php/Unmarried_Spouses

Australia:
(Called a de facto relationship)

www.wattsmccray.com.au/difference-de-facto-relationship-marriage-eyes-law/

Absolutely this.

People are wedded to certain things.

I have had to review some things I myself have thought and it isn't always easy, so I sort of understand why, but you have to keep trying to listen to experts or you just get further and further behind/out of line.

No one intelligent does think this. Though yes, it’s surprising that people who are basically literate and have internet access think it.

I don’t think it’s entirely surprising. I was plugging details into Compare the Market (or Money Supermarket, I can’t remember which) recently for home insurance quotes. One of the options available for marital status was “Common law.” I’ve also seen it as an option in the past on a range of forms provided by the local authority and my local NHS Trust. If regulated financial products and statutory bodies are perpetuating the myth, if only in terminology, that there’s such a thing as a common law partnership, suggesting that only unintelligent people might believe it to be true is unfair.

Well I am glad it doesn't, then people have options. How often do we see threads on here where everyone says he's a cocklodger? With no common law, people can just separate and go their own way. With common law, people could lose parts of property, savings and pensions just because they let someone sponge off the too long. That is not just a female supporting male thing, goes all ways.

I have known a number of cases like this. She was lucky to have been bought out. Many I was involved with were just straightforward evictions.

England and Scotland differed on this. Until a few years ago Scotland recognised what it called marriages "of habit and repute" where a couple lived together.

However, the Scots Courts never said how long the relationship had to have lasted to be a marriage of habit and repute. The only case I know of said 18 years was NOT long enough.

Anyhow, the Court of Session outlawed them sometime in the 1990s.