Some couples wonder if they should even make their marriage legal or just stay living together. To some marriage is only something that is a piece of paper saying they are legally together. For those they may not want to have just a paper to tell them how important it is, especially if they’ve already lived together for a few years. Common law marriage requirements are listed below for all states that recognize such a union: Alabama – mental capacity to enter into agreement; agree to be married and consummation of the relationship Colorado – present yourself as married and cohabitate Iowa – intend to be and stay married, continuous cohabitation and public declaration of marriage Kansas – mental capacity and legal ability to marry, agree to marry and publicly represent that you are married Montana – capacity to consent, agree to marry, cohabitate and have a reputation of being married Oklahoma – competency, agree to marry and cohabitate Pennsylvania – verbal exchange of agreement to marry and a plan to stay married Rhode Island – serious intent to stay married and conduct of a married couple South Carolina – represent yourself as a married couple Texas – signed form at their local county clerk’s office, agree to marry, cohabitate and behave as husband and wife Utah – capable of giving consent and a reputation of being married Washington, D. The material things seemingly just disappear while moments of happiness linger with us forever. How to find happiness in a marriage is by your attitude. True happiness is an attitude of noticing the good constantly coming our way. You will find that there is so much good coming every minute, there is no need to hand onto the past. Is this really something worth upsetting the person you love about? Is it something that you can’t reach a compromise with? Isn’t it possible that you are being just a tiny bit unreasonable? Which leads to the next best piece of marriage advice – and that is to look first to your own actions before you start assigning the role of the unreasonable party to your partner. Do you really need to have love in a relationship in order to marry, and do you need to marry if you love someone? Only one generation back, our so-called civilized culture declared that love and marriage inevitably followed one another. There were no co-habiting/common-law relationships socially acceptable. The practice of paying a dowry to the family of the bride or the groom, which could include land as well as other types of property, has served throughout the history of marriage to ensure property rights among kinship groups. Rules governing whom one could marry have existed throughout the history of marriage, and religious and civil law have contained restrictions that have limited marriage options, and intermarriage within a kinship group has often been forbidden.