> Men stopped marrying, so the government decided to treat live in arrangements as marriage in an attempt to catch-up. Hilarious if it wasn't so absurd. You're

> Men stopped marrying, so the government decided to treat live in arrangements as marriage in an attempt to catch-up. Hilarious if it wasn't so absurd. You're talking about common-law marriage, which is actually a very old institution. The Supreme Court approved its validity in 1877. It also still, in most states that still have it, requires that both members of the couple involved declare themselves to be married and/or present themselves to the community as a married couple. It's actually starting to go away, even: Pennsylvania banned it taking effect in 2005, and Alabama will abolish it effective with the beginning of next year. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common-law_marriage_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common-law_marriage_in_the_Uni...