To my mind, a major problem is use by the Churchly of the term "marriage" in a deliberately propagandistic way:
- you can be united before a judge or a justice of the peace
- it is a ceremony, not a judicial transaction
- this is legally the same as marriage, therefore it is a marriage
- ceremony, particularly marriage, is NOT a place for the courts, & is exclusive Church territory
- QED: the Church can freely weigh in on EVERY "domestic joining" in the United States
Hence, even the most atheistic of homosexuals who treat registering their domestic partnership in an entirely businesslike manner, as though they were applying for a building permit, are readily seen by the Churchly as having a GAY MARRIAGE that directly infringes upon the religious freedoms of All Right-Thinking Christians Everywhere.
IMO, the term "marriage" needs to be minimized, & "wedding" can go with it.
The problem may be different elsewhere. I only address my experience in the United States, but you should acquaint yourself with our socalled "religious freedom" laws that grow every day.
Over here,
common-law marriage popularly means a variety of things, some of them mutually contradictory. It is variously (mis-)taken to mean unmarried cohabitation, contract marriage, tribal marriage, & marriages that went through all the usual rigamarole but failed to file the certificate correctly. Only eight states continue to allow new common-law marriages to be established.
The rules as to what constitues a common-law marriage vary from state to state. It's rather detailed in Texas, but can be so simple as Rhode Island:
- the parties seriously intend to enter into the husband-wife relationship
- the parties’ conduct is of such a character as to lead to a belief in the community that they are married
Years back, I was told that the purpose of common-law marriage was intended primarily to protect women, in cases where
- a man showed every intent to marry, but died from illness or at war, &/or
- a man was using promises of eventual marriage to gain favors (sexual & otherwise)
I've long had the impression that common-law marriage has been being squeezed out of existence from two sides: the Church feels subverted by it, & there's less social pressure for marriage in general.
A major problem with common-law marriage is that there is NO simplified path for divorce -- most people think it just ceases to exist when they get separate apartments.
A rare upside of the standard wedding contract is that (largely thanks to the "no-fault divorce" revolution) the contract can often be ended for little more than filing fees. If you want to end a CLM, at least that level of formality is needed, & maybe a full-on trip through the courts.
...which kinda begs the question (again) as to how CLM is in any way better than filing the damned certificate.
Anyway, there's STILL no allowance in CLM anywhere for anything other than "one man, one woman" in this nation, & the likelihood of wording being expanded is approximately 0.00...%, so the point is entirely moot in any discussion of polyamory.