Common-Law Marriage (redirected from Legal Applications)

common-law marriage: see under husband and wife.

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common-law marriage

Marriage that is without a civil or religious ceremony and is based on the parties' agreement to consider themselves married and usually also on their cohabitation for a period of time. Most jurisdictions no longer allow this type of marriage to be formed, though they may recognize such marriages formed before a certain date or formed in a jurisdiction that permits such marriages.

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Common-Law Marriage 

marital relations not formalized in the manner provided by law (see).

In the USSR, common-law marriage does not give rise to the marital rights and duties provided by legislation on marriage and the family. From 1927 through July 8, 1944, the legislation on marriage and the family of the RSFSR and other Union republics, except the Azerbaijan, Tadzhik, Uzbek, and Ukrainian SSR’s, allowed for recognition by judicial procedure of the legal force of a common-law marriage; children born of such a marriage had the same rights and duties with respect to their parents as children born of a registered marriage.

After the adoption of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of July 8, 1944, which provided for the obligatory registration of marriage, the court was not permitted to recognize common-law marital relations that were formed after July 8, 1944. Persons who had entered into a common-law marriage before the issuance of the decree were given the right to register the marriage with an indication of the time they had been living together. In case one of the parties had died or been declared missing in action during wartime, the other party had the right to apply to the court for recognition of the dead or missing person as the spouse.