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Thus ending over 300 years of Pennsylvania law.
The recent change In Pa law started about five years ago when the Pa Supreme Court ruled that a 12 year old could enter into a Common Law Marriage for 12 was the age of consent under the Common Law for sex or marriage. The actual case involved a teacher and his 12 year old student and he walked because the girl said she did NOT have sex with him till both of them said they were Husband and Wife (and that is required under the Common Law).
Prior to the Council of Trent in the the mid 1560s (The Council of Trent was formed to address the problem of the Protestant Reformation) ALL MARRIAGES IN EUROPE WERE WHAT WE WOULD CALL "COMMON LAW MARRIAGES". THe reason for this was when the Roman Empire fell, it did NOT fall to an invading horde but collapsed internally. With Internal Collapse the Ruling Elites invited in the Germans to provide Military muscle at the same time Roman language, culture and institutions (Including the Church) survived. Under Roman Law the STATE married people, with the collapse of the state ceremonial marriages were NO longer possible. Thus Marriage became one of Custom instead of law (Through "lawful" when it come to purposes of inheritance and who had a duty to be supported and support other people).
Remember prior to the late 1800s your extended family was more important than your nuclear family. The extended Family was your support group, your welfare support, your unemployment insurance, your disability insurance, your children's babysitters and your care giver in your old age. Thus who was married to whom was important independent of sex. Now sex and reproduction was a factor in marriage, but how many children one had was more often a product of what your relatives wanted you to have than want a mother and father wanted. The extended family often put pressure on women and men to keep the number of their children down and who someone had sex with in and out of the family.
Anyway with the fall of the Roman Empire, you had the lost of keeping family books by the Roman Bureaucracy. The only institution that could duplicate that function was the Church, but being a surviving part of the Roman Empire the Church did NOT want to over extend its control. The primary reason for this hesitation seems to be that while the Western Roman Empire fell sometime between 450 and 570 AD, the Eastern Roman Empire Survived this period and was the single strongest country in the World from 450 AD till 1054 (Except for about a half century when the Arab empire was at its height about 700-750 AD and ignoring China whose Empire was to far way to affect Europe and the Mid-East compared to the Eastern Roman Empire). Thus the Catholic Church during the "Dark Ages" was reluctant to extend its power to areas that had been the Roman State's. Thus the Church did NOT marry people at this time period, but did get around its concern by "Blessing" such marriages.
By the time of the High Middle Ages (about 1000-1400) the practice in Europe was for a couple to go to the steps of the Church and announce to anyone around that they were accepting each other as Husband and Wife. The Parish Priest would then invite everyone into the church to "bless" the marriage and record the mass in his Parish Record (Thus preserving a record of the Marriage). They is one historian who reports of such blessing of Homosexual coupling in the 1300s (and said they were Homosexual Marriages by the Church which they could NOT be for at that time period the Church did NOT marry people).
Anyway after the Sacking of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204 there was a movement of Greek teachers from Constantinople to Italy as the Constantinople never recovered from the Sacking of 1204 and from that decline declined further (By the Taking of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 Constantinople was a Shadow of its former self, the largest city in the world between 570 and 1204 rivaled for a time by Baghdad, but always number 1 by a Huge factor). This movement of Greek Teachers to Italy brought with it a renewed knowledge of Roman Law. This had its good parts (Getting rid of Trial by Combat) and its bad parts (Reduction in the rights of Woman) over the Germanic Codes that had become part of Western Legal Tradition at that time. One aspect of this was who married people. While the Roman Law said the State, the Western Tradition had for almost a 1000 years had been the people themselves followed by a Blessing of the Marriage by the Church. How do you resolve this dispute between the Traditions and Roman Law?
A further factor was the increase wealth of the Middle Class during this time period. With that Increased wealth was who should inherit it? The Western Tradition fell into two groups, the first was to all of the Children of deceased (Or other heirs if no children), the other was that the wealth went to the eldest son. The problem was that under both Roman and German Law only "Legitimate" children could inherit. Who was "Legitimate"? while someone who was born AFTER a valid marriage was entered into. What happened if a man promised to marry one woman and had sex with her(A form of Common Law Marriage), and then formally married another women in front of witnesses (Another form of Common Law Marriage), who was his "Wife"? The answer was the First, even if his only intention in making the promise was to have sex with her (This is what happened to Edward VI and his Brother Richard III, Richard assembled the Throne after finding out his brother had made such a promise to one woman he had bedded, and then married the mother of the "Princes", thus making the second Marriage void and the Princes illegitimate and with that Richard III king of England).
Richard III having his nephews declared illegitimate do to their parents marriage being void for their Father having been married at the time he exchanged vows with their mother, is just the most famous case involving the problem of Common LAw Marriages and the Right of inheritance. This appears to be a Rare but not unheard of problem of the time period. To end this possibility the Council of Trent decided the best solution was a variation of Roman Law, i.e. the all Marriages must be done in a Ceremony, but instead of by a State Official it be done by a Church Official (Thus the Marriage Ceremony went from outside the Church to Inside the Church).
Note the date of the Council of Trent, 1560. Thus it is effective on Catholic Countries, it was NOt effective on Protestant Counties (Through the French Revolution would move the Ceremony from the Church back to the State even in Catholic Countries). Thus in Catholic Countries they have NOT been Common LAw Marriages since 1560s.
As to "Protestant" countries, the shift occurred later than 1560, but even England (the last holdout) had abolished Common LAw Marriages for England by the early 1730s (Through holding out the tradition for people who had no access to a Priest or Justice of the Peace to this day, thus the "Tradition" of Captains marrying people on his ship, the Captain in NOT marrying the couple but wittinesses and recording the Common Law Marriage of the Couple).
Just some background on Common Law Marriage I have learned over the years.
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