Divorce and neopaganism

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[theperfumer]

Hello everyone -

It's been awhile since I've posted here (life.) In the meantime, I'm writing a book on neopaganism - mainly Wicca - and divorce, mainly about the spiritual dimensions of it. To that end, I am looking for people who identify as neopagan who have experienced a divorce, where it has been one year or more since any divorce to participate in an intensive survey. The survey is here: http://survey.dianarajchel.com. If you were not legally married but were together long enough to qualify for a common-law marriage, I will count that. Also, the survey is designed so that you can skip questions you find triggering or irrelevant, and so that you can mark a page of the survey and come back to it later. It is a LONG survey. Your contribution will not be taken lightly. I take privacy very seriously, and I will not disclose email addresses or legal names to anyone. Obviously, there will be a permissions exception arranged for anyone who goes on camera.

Also, if this project is something that you support, please post the link to your Facebook/Twitter accounts and to any places where you think people would find it relevant. Again, the more perspectives I have the better I can tailor the book to the community's needs and the more I can help us understand ourselves insofar as that's possible.

If you'd like to know more about me, you can find that here: http://dianarajchel.com. You can see where I'm going with the book at this point here: http://dianarajchel.com/darw_toc.html To date I have around 58 respondents; while I don't have a specific participant goal I would like to get the broadest representation I possibly can. I am also looking seriously at creating an online documentary to accompany the book, assuming enough people are willing to go on camera.

Your help and participation is so much appreciated!

[sailor_tech]

If you were not legally married but were together long enough to qualify for a common-law marriage, I will count that.

Length of time together has no bearing on common-law marriage. In US states that still recognize common law marriage, it's valid immediately. In those states that don't recognize it, it doesn't matter how long you live together.

[theperfumer]

Length of time together has no bearing on common-law marriage. In US states that still recognize common law marriage, it's valid immediately. In those states that don't recognize it, it doesn't matter how long you live together.

Thanks for the details on that! All I remember is that Indiana automatically declared any couple that lived together for five years or more married. I have no idea what it did to anyone's taxes.

[sailor_tech]

Thanks for the details on that! All I remember is that Indiana automatically declared any couple that lived together for five years or more married. I have no idea what it did to anyone's taxes.

Indiana has not accepted common law marriages originiating within the state since 1958. Again, time frame has never been set, so five years is irrelevent.

[Satsekhem]

Length of time together has no bearing on common-law marriage. In US states that still recognize common law marriage, it's valid immediately. In those states that don't recognize it, it doesn't matter how long you live together.

Common-law in MA (where I am not) was seven years last I heard. Down in Texas, it was six months. (Randall/Lyric could clarify that one, too.) I always just assumed each state had a set time limit for common-law marriages.

[Darkhawk]

Common-law in MA (where I am not) was seven years last I heard.

There is no common law marriage in MA.

(My aunt and uncle have been living together since they graduated from high school and are not married, which would put common law as somewhere upwards of forty years if it did exist.)

[HeartShadow - Cutethulhu]

Common-law in MA (where I am not) was seven years last I heard. Down in Texas, it was six months. (Randall/Lyric could clarify that one, too.) I always just assumed each state had a set time limit for common-law marriages.

It's disappearing in a lot of places - I know in Ohio they phased it out in the last .. 20 yrs or so, I believe.  If you were ALREADY common-law married under the law it was grandfathered, but no new assumptions of marriage.

[Satsekhem]

It's disappearing in a lot of places - I know in Ohio they phased it out in the last .. 20 yrs or so, I believe.  If you were ALREADY common-law married under the law it was grandfathered, but no new assumptions of marriage.

Huh. I don't think I like that.

[Satsekhem]

There is no common law marriage in MA.

(My aunt and uncle have been living together since they graduated from high school and are not married, which would put common law as somewhere upwards of forty years if it did exist.)

Yeah, I just looked it up.

A common-law marriage can still be contracted in the District of Columbia and ten states: Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Texas. New Hampshire law provides for posthumous recognition of common-law marriage in probate cases; and Utah will recognize a common-law marriage if the parties get a judicial decree to the effect a common law marriage exists or existed between them.

[HeartShadow - Cutethulhu]

Huh. I don't think I like that.

Well, given that co-ed ROOMMATES happens with some regularity, I think it's a protection against becoming "married" to someone that you're just living with to pay the bills.  It requires people to take that step to actually *become married* instead of it just *happening*.

I believe the common law marriage thing had purpose when a woman had to run away from her family to marry someone inappropriate - after a certain amount of time it was just a done deal.  But now when you have the choice to marry if and when you please?  Yeah - I like that it can't happen by accident.

[Sperran]

Huh. I don't think I like that.

The original reason for common-law marriage has disappeared, which was that people were so distant from courthouses that it was a hard for them to get in to file the official papers with the state.  People often had a religious ceremony and then filed the official papers years later.

Sperran

[Star]

Huh. I don't think I like that.

Why not, out of curiosity?

[Satsekhem]

Why not, out of curiosity?

Surprisingly, I think it was a "the man is holding me back" moment. I don't usually care about the government and what they do in regards to "keeping me safe." I don't dream of conspiracy theories smacking me in the face at any given moment, but... this abolishment (even though it happened when I was a baby/before I was born) seems silly and old-fashioned. Why should it matter? Although, I see where Shadow was going with the opposite sex roommates thing.

[Darkhawk]

Why not, out of curiosity?

Not kemet83, but I firmly believe that the power to enter into marriage belongs to individual people.  I can bend to the idea that the state as a stand-in for the recognition of a community is workable in a society in which the concept of "community" is wholly fractured - which I believe to be the case here/now, alas - but the deep-down simplistic idealistic parts of me feel that people should be able to put themselves forward as married and have that respected.

(This is rendered moderately more complicated by the fact that respecting marriage comes with a vast legal tangle of stuff, of course, and some of that is readily abusable without some level of regulation.  Hence my recognition that my deep-down impulses are, in fact, simplistic.)

I'd note in some areas the development of common-law marriages was never as simple as "live together a certain amount of time"; some required that the people use words like "husband" and "wife", or otherwise claim to their community that they were married, for example.  Make the claim and it is so; do not make the claim and it is not.

[Star]

but the deep-down simplistic idealistic parts of me feel that people should be able to put themselves forward as married and have that respected.

Which I tend to generally agree with, but I guess I'm not getting why it's such a big deal, if two people consider themselves married, to go down to the courthouse and file the appropriate papers.  Don't have to make a big occasion of it, but if you're functioning as a married couple and consider yourselves to be married, and you're legally eligible to be married to each other, I'm not understanding why the objection to putting it in writing.

Then again, I have no experience with the "just file the papers and don't make an occasion of it" way of getting married, so I'm also not familiar with what issues and potential problems might be inherent in that process.  Maybe there are factors I'm just not taking into consideration?

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