Most couples who get married choose to have a civil or religious ceremony to solemnize their marriage. However, residents of Texas can also get married through the process of a common law marriage. Texas couples should understand how to enter a common law marriage in Texas, including the rights, benefits, and responsibilities that come with it.
Understanding Common Law Marriage
In Texas, a common law marriage, also called a “marriage without formalities” or an “informal marriage,” allows couples to create a lawful, valid marriage under state law. Texas treats common law marriages the same as formal marriages that have civil or religious ceremonies to solemnize the marriage. As a result, couples in common law marriages have the same rights and benefits as traditionally married couples, including with respect to taxes, government benefits, probate, and divorce.
Some people assume that a couple can create a common law marriage simply by living together for a specific period. However, Texas’s requirements for common law marriages focus on the intent and overt actions of the parties.
Requirements for a Valid Common Law Marriage in Texas
Under Texas law, a couple can create a valid common law marriage by meeting specific requirements:
- Be at least 18: Minors may not enter a common law marriage in Texas.
- Be single: A person cannot enter a common law marriage while lawfully married to another person under the laws of Texas or another jurisdiction.
- Agreement to marry: Both partners must have a present intent to enter a marriage with one another:
- Living together as spouses: The couple must live together under circumstances that resemble a marriage, such as sharing financial and household responsibilities, having intimate relations, or engaging in other marital activities.
- Holding each other out as a married couple: The couple must publicly represent themselves as a married couple, such as by introducing each other as spouses or filing taxes as a married couple.
Alternatively, a couple can establish a valid common law marriage by filing a signed declaration of informal marriage with the county clerk in the county where the couple resides.
Legal Rights and Responsibilities from Common Law Marriage
Couples in a common law marriage have the same rights and responsibilities as couples in traditional marriages, including:
- Property rights, including equal ownership rights to marital property under community property rules
- Right to seek spousal support in the event of divorce
- Inheritance rights after a spouse’s death
- Eligibility for government benefits afforded to spouses, such as military spouse, VA, or Social Security benefits
- The right to seek child custody and support of children born of the marriage or children adopted during the marriage
How to Prove or Disprove a Common Law Marriage
Individuals may seek to prove or disprove the existence of a common law marriage under various circumstances. For example, an individual may assert the existence of a common law marriage to file for divorce, seeking property division, spousal support, and child custody and support. A party may also assert the existence of a common law marriage when filing for spousal benefits from government benefit programs. Finally, a party may allege a common law marriage with a deceased individual to seek a spousal inheritance.
In Texas, parties can prove the existence of a common law marriage either through a signed declaration of informal marriage or through evidence that the couple agreed to become a married couple and thereafter lived together in Texas as a married couple and represented themselves to others as such.
Contact a Family Law Attorney Today
Couples in Texas can enter a common law marriage through their intentions and actions. Contact Guest & Gray today for a free consultation with a family lawyer to learn more about common law marriages in Texas and to discuss your rights and obligations when you have a common law marriage with your spouse.
