South Carolina Divorce and Family Law » Marriage

Questions to Get Answered Before Getting Married

Tripp — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:29:04 +0000

As a divorce lawyer I meet with people in bad marriages every day. The marriages we discuss are widely varied and come in all shapes and sizes. It is always sad when a marriage doesn’t work out no matter how long it lasted, but there is something puzzling that I can’t quite put my finger on about marriages that last only a few weeks or months. Sometimes, I think the breakdown of these marriages has to do with communication issues or just varied future plans.

I ran across as list of marriage questions you should discuss with your future spouse before you get married. These are questions about the decision to get married in general, family questions like how many children should you have, what religious beliefs do you have, what are your thoughts and ideas about money and how we will manage money as a family, will both of us work or not, what types of values do you have, what are your family values, what is your family relationship like, etc.

I think you will find the article thought provoking and helpful to make sure you are making the right decision before you get into a marriage.

Can a Couple get Married without a Ceremony?

Tripp — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:50:02 +0000

In South Carolina there are essentially two main ways for you to get into a marriage. The first is the traditional “statutory marriage.” That is where you go down to the probate court in the county where you live and get a marriage license with your significant other and have a marriage ceremony.

The other way for you to get married is what is called the “common law marriage.” What I hear from prospective clients and friends about common law marriage is that they believe that you are automatically common law married with someone after you have lived with them for a certain amount of time.

The truth is, time does not play in to determining if you are common law married. There are several factors that will determine whether you are married or not.

Here they are:

Cohabitation: You and your significant other must be living together to get common law married.
Hold Yourself Out as Husband and Wife: You and your significant other must be holding yourself out as husband and wife. That means when you go out you introduce them as your husband/wife.
Both parties are over 16 years old
Neither party is currently married to another person.

If you are common law married, that is the same as being married. You have the same rights, etc. as if you are married the traditional way. If things don’t work out you would have to get a divorce.

How Do We Get Into a Marriage?

Tripp — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:12:47 +0000

Well, this blog talks a lot about divorce issues and how to get out of a marriage, but so far we haven’t talked about how to get into a marriage. In South Carolina there are two ways to get married and over the next couple of days we will talk about each way to get married.

The first way is a statutory marriage. This is what you think of when you and your bride/groom-to-be run down to the local probate court and fill out your marriage license request and then a few weeks later you gather together with 500 of your closest friends to celebrate the big day. Check out our post later on to see what the requirements are for you to qualify for that marriage license.

The second way for you to get married in South Carolina is more passive. You may not even intend to be married, but you could in fact be married according to a judge. Yup, it’s the old fashioned common law marriage. When we talk about common law marriage we will define it as well as put down some of the rumors and incorrect ways of being “common law married.”

So stay tuned and prepare for these new posts coming in the days ahead.

Can a Couple get Married without a Ceremony?