Common Law Marriage States

Introduction

A common law marriage is a legally recognized marriage between two people who are married without a large ceremony and without being registered as a religious marriage. To undergo a common law marriage, the couple in question does not need a marriage license. 

Common law marriages are only legal in a small handful of states, and the trend over the last century has been that fewer and fewer states permit common law marriages. Common law marriages do not involve any formality, official documentation of legality, or the intermediary of a civil or religious service to recognize the union shared between two people. 

In this way, common law marriages consist of two people who live together, who also act and arrange the affairs of their lives as though they were married. From the perspective of common law marriages, if two people who cohabitate and live in the aforementioned way, then that means they are married. 

Because common law marriages aren’t recognized by the state in which they occur, there is no possibility for a formal divorce to occur if one of the two individuals in the marriage decides they want to leave, presumably making it more likely that the two will separate. If this occurs, then the couple simply separates and must then determine how to split their joint assets between the two of them. 

To learn more about common law marriage, scroll the data in the charts.