According to Unmarried Equality, common law marriages offer many of the same rights as ... According to The Knot website, each state and D.C. may have some specific requirements as well.

Only nine states are classified as community property states. Five other states—Alaska, Florida, Kentucky, South Dakota, and Tennessee—have ... during a marriage. In a common law state ...

the SSA first requires that the couple does have a valid common law marriage according to their state’s laws. This varies from state to state, but generally requires, in layman’s terms ...