Dumb question about marriage

[XemaSab]

What is marriage?

Correct me if I'm wrong:

If a man and a woman want to get married, they have to go get a license, then they can choose to have no ceremony, a ceremony with a certified friend or relative, a shipboard ceremony with the captain, a civil ceremony with a judge, a Vegas-style ceremony with Elvis, or a church wedding with a minister (or other clergyman), no?

At what point do they become officially married in the eyes of the law?

And if they opt for a homegrown ceremony, a Vegas ceremony, or church ceremony, how do they register with the state? :shrug:

Finally, what makes a couple married in the common law?

Thanks!

(And yes, this is related to Prop 8).

[NMDemDist2]

1. you get a license from the county clerk, you get someone to sign the bottom

of said license who is registered to marry folk in that state (could be a minister, judge, justice of the peace, the mayor, whoever) who swears they performed the marriage 'ceremony' and return said license to the county clerk and they issue a marriage certificate and voila' you are married.

in Vegas, you get a Nevada marriage certificate that is honored in other states. same basic routine, but they do it all onsite (Nevada is different than most places for both marriage and divorce requirements)

only some states recognize common law marriage, but usually it's when a man and woman live together for a specified period of time (5-7 years usually) as "man and wife" then if one of them dies the other would have a legal right to some survivor benefits, but that also varies by state and usually common law 'marriages' aren't recognized in other states.

I think I have that mostly right, hope it helps

:hi:

[XemaSab]

4. Thanks!

:hi:

[sandnsea]

2. They do have to have the license signed

and turned back into the county by someone who the state has recognized to perform marriages. I'm not sure if they are required to say something out loud or not. I can't remember who sends the signed license back to the county, I think the officating person might.

Common law really isn't recognized too much anymore. But previously, if a couple claimed to be married and lived as Mr & Mrs, then they were considered to have a common law marriage after 7 years. But with so much moving in and out these days, people shouldn't depend on that. I'm not sure they ever really did.

[XemaSab]

5. Thank you!

:D

[rug]

3. There's good info here:

http://www.unmarried.org/common-law-marriage-fact-sheet.html

[XemaSab]

6. Thank you for this!

:bounce:

[PurityOfEssence]

7. Societal endorsement of a state of union

That's the real problem: people don't want to accept that gay relationships are legitimate. It's sad, it's annoying, it's steeped in religious bilgewater--like most uglinesses in this world that are somehow given a blank check by society at large--and it WILL CHANGE.

People who have a problem with sex (oh, did I mention religion?) have even MORE problems with gay sex. Remember H. L. Mencken's definition of Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. Those who can't find joy themselves often deem themselves justified to deny it to others; it's one of the darker sides of the human character.

The truth of relationships is that most of the time spent together is mutual support, sharing, taking turns keeping it all moving forward, and all that pesky human stuff. Gay sex is neither inferior nor superior to Straight sex or no sex at all. (Although, I must admit to being a bigot against that last alternative, but being a committed liberal, I'll defend people's right to be chaste...) A committed, loving relationship is literally indistinguishable from another on the basis of gender. Patterns of personalities exist, but people sort out in a broad spectrum of character types to such a degree that assumptions based on gender or preference are effectively unfounded bigotry. People are people, and should be assessed individually. Once that's accepted, the concept of hierarchical sorting of pairings is simply silly.

People hate that. They're jealous of other people's joy.

People have the bizarre belief that by condemning non-straight behavior they can make it cease to exist. They believe that they have the right to play god and enforce correctness. More than anything, they have a sick greediness about joy: they seek vengeance on others who have the gall of having a life that works because somehow their life hasn't. It's a meanness of the soul, and it's something we all have to get past: if we don't accept that others have it, we'll be blindsided by it.

In the end, gay rights will probably be had faster than most acceptances due to the sheer, undeniable fact that gays are everywhere. Now that the genie (or other sprite) is effectively out of the bottle, there's no recorking. Still, the nastiness of the resistance will persist for awhile, and that's just human nature.

The bottom line is this: people have the need and right to be with whomever they want as long as it's mutual, and nobody has any right to deny them that. Not granting the full expression of societal acceptance is a denial of that right. In the same way, however, we have no right to force religions or other organizations to accept this, and people will have to make their own varied peace with those groups.

It's a sad and petty world at times, and not recognizing that just makes one more vulnerable to its vagaries.

[JJ]

8. Marriage sucks

No one should do it.

JMO