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Difference between revisions of "Unmarried Spouses"
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→"Common-Law Spouses"
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==="Common-Law Spouses"=== | ==="Common-Law Spouses"=== | ||
Family law in British Columbia doesn't talk about people who are ''common-law spouses'' and never has. Once upon a time, people could marry each other and create a legal relationship simply by agreeing to marry, without getting a licence from the government or having a particular kind of ceremony. Because the rights between the spouses came from principles established by the common law, these were known as common-law marriages. Common-law marriages were valid in England until the ''Marriage Act'' of 1753, better known by its full flowery name, ''An Act for the Better Preventing of Clandestine Marriage''. | |||
Normally I wouldn't make a fuss about terminology like this, except that the phrase kind of suggests that there are some sort of rights and entitlements that a couple get from the magical operation of the common law, but this really isn't the case, and it hasn't been the case for two and a half centuries. What's really important is whether a couple are ''spouses'' under the particular law that they're looking at; all of their rights and entitlements come from the operation of a statute. | |||
There is no such thing as a common-law spouse or a common-law marriage in British Columbia. If you're a spouse, it's because of s. 3 of the ''Family Law Act''. | |||
==Qualifying as an Unmarried Spouse== | ==Qualifying as an Unmarried Spouse== | ||