Quote:
Originally posted by richlevy
One aspect of the case was disturbing. Even though Mr. Green divorced all but one of his wives, he was still living with all of them. The state declared that by cohabitating they were his "common law" wives and therefore he was committing polygamy.
In theory, this means that if you set up housekeeping with two women, even without exchanging vows, in a state with common law marriage, you run the risk of becoming an "accidental bigamist". This could open up a whole new way for the goverment to interfere in personal lifesytles.
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Regarding common law, in most states, the length of time is generally 7 years. In addition, we're talking about Utah here, so their standard may be more strict (i.e. simply cohabitating could mean common law, whereas Illinois's definition is more lax).
My biggest problem (along with the fact that these women were young) is that apparently these "divorcees" were collecting welfare. I have zero tolerance for that bullshit. You want to have 29 kids (with 4 more on the way), then you damned well better be able to afford them! (Although, if Utah is on the same wavelength as most states, their TANF benefits would be running out shortly.)
This is one of the millions of reasons why I'm not having children. ;-)