Common Law Marriage in Iowa
by: Iowa Legal Aid
Under Iowa law, a woman and a man can marry by applying for a marriage license and having a ceremony or proceeding before a magistrate, judge or clergy. Marriage by common law is another way for a woman and a man to become husband and wife without a license, ceremony or any other type of formal proceeding. A woman and a man can be married by common law marriage if they meet certain requirements.
There are three requirements for a woman and a man to be married by common law in Iowa. First, there must be an agreement between the woman and the man to be married. Second, they must live together continuously as spouses. Third, they need to conduct themselves publicly as a married couple.
To have an agreement to be married, the woman and the man must want to be married to each other and must agree that they are married. The parties must consider that they are married rather than talk about getting married at a later date. However, the parties do not need to have a written agreement to be married. Sometimes, the parties do not even need to have a spoken agreement that they are married if they live together like spouses and behave like a married couple.
The woman and man must live together continuously to be married by common law. The couple needs to live together as a husband and a wife which generally means that they must have a sexual relationship with each other. There is not a specific amount of time that the people must live with each other. For example, Iowa Law does not require the woman and the man to live together for a period of five years to create a common law marriage. Nonetheless, the couple needs to live together continuously for some period of time instead of just occasionally or sometimes on the weekend.
To meet the third requirement for common law marriage, the couple must conduct themselves publically as a married couple. Basically, this means that the couple must act married, hold themselves out as married or say that they are married. There are many different ways that a woman and a man can hold themselves out as married. They can use the same last name. They can wear wedding bands. The man can call the woman his wife and the woman can call the man her husband. The parties also might use other names for each other in public such as Mr. and Mrs. The parties could hold themselves out as spouses by failing to correct other people who call them Mr. and Mrs. They also might have joint bank accounts or joint credit cards. They could file joint tax returns. These are just examples of ways that a woman and a man could hold themselves out as married. Those are not the only way that a couple could hold themselves out as married.
If there is a dispute about whether a woman and a man are common law married, the court can decide if there is a common law marriage. Once a woman and a man are married either under common law or after a ceremony, one of them needs to file a dissolution of marriage action if one of them wants to end the marriage.
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