“Common law marriage” again, an upcoming holocaust denial case, the faculty jurisdiction – but we haven’t mentioned Brexit because we’ve lost the plot…
The myth of common law marriage
The first findings from this year’s British Social Attitudes Survey carried out by the National Centre for Social Research have revealed that almost half of people in England and Wales – 46 per cent – believes that unmarried couples who live together have a “common law marriage” with the same rights as couples that are legally married. That figure has remained largely unchanged over the last fourteen years (it was 47 per cent in 2005) despite a significant increase in the number of cohabiting couples. In contrast, only 41 per cent of respondents knew that common law marriage is a myth. According to the researchers, people are significantly more likely to believe in common law marriage when children come into the equation; 55 per cent of households with children think that common law marriage exists, while only 41 per cent of households without children do so.
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