Facebook and Common Law Marriages
The law behind common law marriages was created to protect people who choose to live together but do not choose to legally marry each other. In the case of a break up among people who live together but are not married, if they meet the basic criteria for common law marriage in Colorado, they may legally divorce each other which then allows them to divide up assets, children and such through the courts.
The basic criteria for common law marriage in Colorado requires that the couple live together, mutually agree to be married and project themselves as married in the community. Within this criteria there is a lot of leeway and there is no duration of time required to live together. When courts need to determine the existence of a common law marriage they might look for things such as joint bank accounts, insurance, joint tax returns or even mail that addresses the couple as Mr and Mrs.
With the common law criteria being so vague, such things as Facebook or other social media could actually fulfill some of that criteria and the couple might not even realize that it could make them legally common law married. If a couple identifies each other on Facebook as married to each other, it satisfies the criteria as agreeing to be married and projecting themselves as married to the community.
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