Marriage law

Marriage law is the body of legal specifications and requirements and other laws that regulate the initiation, continuation, and validity of marriages, an aspect of family law, that determine the validity of a marriage, and which vary considerably among countries in terms of what can and cannot be legally recognized by the state.

A marriage, by definition, bestows rights and obligations on the married parties, and sometimes on relatives as well, being the sole mechanism for the creation of affinal ties (in-laws). Historically, many societies have given sets of rights and obligations to husbands that have been very different from the sets of rights and obligations given to wives. In particular, the control of marital property, inheritance rights, and the right to dictate the activities of children of the marriage have typically been given to male marital partners (for more details see coverture and marital power). However, these practices were curtailed to a great deal in many countries, especially Western countries, in the twentieth century, and more modern statutes tend to define the rights and duties of a spouse without reference to gender. In various marriage laws around the world, however, the husband continues to have authority; for instance, the Civil Code of Iran states at Article 1105: "In relations between husband and wife; the position of the head of the family is the exclusive right of the husband".

These rights and obligations vary considerably among legal systems, societies, and groups within a society, and may include:

Common-law marriages were valid in England until the Clandestine Marriages Act 1753. The act did not apply to Scotland, however, and for many years thereafter couples went north across the border to thwart the ban. On the European continent, common-law marriages were frequent in the Middle Ages, but their legality was abolished in the Roman Catholic countries by the Council of Trent (1545–1563), which required that marriages be celebrated in the presence of a priest and two witnesses.

The Catholic Church forbade clandestine marriage at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which required all marriages to be announced in a church by a priest. The Council of Trent (1545–1563) introduced more specific requirements, ruling that future marriages would be valid only if witnessed by the pastor of the parish or the local ordinary (the bishop of the diocese) or by the delegate of one of the said witnesses, the marriage being invalid otherwise, even if witnessed by a Catholic priest. This ruling was not accepted in the newly Protestant nations of Europe, nor by Protestants who lived in Roman Catholic countries or their colonies, nor by Eastern Orthodox Christians.

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. Far from being treated as if they were married, couples known to be cohabiting risked prosecution by the church courts for fornication.

The Marriage Act 1753 also did not apply to Britain's overseas colonies of the time, so common-law marriages continued to be recognized in what became the United States and Canada.^{[citation needed]} Although it is claimed that common-law marriage in the US originated in English common-law, this institution in the United States appears to have originated in the primitive conditions of colonial America where the presence of relatively few clerics or civil officials necessitated a substitute for ceremonial marriage, and the need expanded as the settlers moved into the sparsely populated regions of the West. In the United States, common-law marriages are still recognized in Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and the District of Columbia (see Common-law marriage in the United States).

All countries in Europe have now abolished "marriage by habit and repute", with Scotland being the last to do so in 2006.