Yes, couples can be legally married in the District of Columbia without a marriage license or a ceremony. As long as the six qualifications for a legal marriage are met, it is possible to establish a legal common law marriage in the District of Columbia. The District of Columbia recognizes all common law marriages that are established in jurisdictions that recognize common law marriage. There are not many jurisdictions that legally recognize common law marriage but the District of Columbia is one. There are four elements that must all be present to establish a legally recognized common law marriage in this jurisdiction.
The four elements of a legally recognized common law marriage are freedom from impediments to marry, present intent to be married, cohabitation, and reputation in the community. Freedom from impediments to marry means that a person meets the six qualifications described in a previous article on this blog. If a couple can lawfully obtain a marriage license they are likely to be free from impediments to marry.
Present intent to marry means the intent to marry cannot be future. It must be present. A couple that meets three of the four elements of a common law marriage can live together for any length of time with the future intent to be married but if the intent never becomes present no common law marriage is established.
Cohabitation must be in combination with the other three elements to establish a common law marriage. If a couple lives together and engages in sexual relations but does not intend to be married right now no common law marriage is established. This cohabitation must be with the intent for it to be part of the marriage relationship.
Reputation in the community means the couple is holding themselves out as being married. This can be done by telling people they are married, changing their legal name on documents, such as a drivers license, or by other means that communicates to the world that this couple is in fact married.
There are advantages to becoming married through common law marriage. Some advantages may be to avoid the expense of a wedding ceremony, to avoid waiting to be married, or to remove the stigma of the moral judgments of others because the couple is living together.
There are disadvantages to becoming married through common law marriage. The primary disadvantage is the difficulty in proving the marriage. The best evidence of the common law marriage may be the testimony of the two people involved. However, if there is a conflict in the testimony it may be very difficult to obtain a ruling that a common law marriage existed. This is often the issue when property is about to be distributed from the estate of a deceased person.
Imagine a couple becomes married by establishing a common law marriage. They split up but never obtain a decree of divorce from a court. One of the spouses remarries without the new spouse being aware of the common law marriage. A death occurs and the new spouse expects to receive property from the estate of their deceased loved one. However, the first spouse hears of the death and claims rights to marital distribution. If the first spouse can prove the common law marriage existed, the second marriage will be unlawful and the first spouse can take from the estate of their polygamous, deceased spouse, leaving the new spouse out in the cold. If the first spouse cannot prove the common law marriage, the unlawfully married second spouse will be deemed the lawful spouse and take the distribution. The law presumes in favor of the validity of the most recent marriage.
My advice is that every couple in the District of Columbia establish their marriage through a civil or religious ceremony that produces a marriage certificate. This will provide the proof needed in almost every instance that a lawful marriage is in force. If the couple breaks up, a divorce decree will be valid evidence that the marriage no longer exists.
- by Jackson Michael Doggette Jr., Premier Marriage, Divorce, Child Custody, Paternity, Adoption, and Family Law Attorney in Washington, DC
- Visit www.DoggetteLaw.com
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