<p>There’s a flip side to this. </p>
<p>Personally, I would prefer a European system, in which everyone has to get married civilly for it to be a legal marriage. People can also CHOOSE to get married religiously WHETHER OR NOT they are civilly married. </p>
<p>My favorite Catholic priest got in trouble with the law because he was marrying illegal aliens IN THE CHURCH. They knew full well that the marriage wouldn’t be recognized by New York State or any other US government. (Illegal aliens can’t legally marry in the US.) Law enforcement came after him.</p>
<p>He felt he was doing a good thing. First, it wasn’t uncommon for some of those involved to have spouses elsewhere. To get married in the Church, you must have a baptismal certificate issued within the previous six months. Marriages are noted on it. So, when Father would say he would write to get the baptismal cert, the jig was up. Almost always the married person would admit it because (s)he didn’t want the priest back in his/her home town who knew (s)he was married with three kids getting a letter saying he was trying to marry someone else. The unsuspecting partner–usually, but not always the woman–would find out that the other person was already married and end the relationship. This stopped the woman from becoming one of the many women who had gotten involved with illegal aliens, lived with them as man and wife, and then been dumped when he returned home, leaving her as a single mother with several children. Moreover, if they did marry and something did happen to one of them, their families were more likely to recognize the marriage. In one case, he married a couple. About 10 years and several small kids later, he was killed on a non-union construction site. Since the job was off the books, she got nothing. A letter came from his parish priest in Mexico. His parents had heard of their son’s death, knew he was “married,” but their only contact info for him was his cell phone. So, their priest wrote the priest he knew had married them to see if he knew where his wife and children were. They wanted her to know that she and their grandchildren were welcome to come live with them. They were poor, but had a decent house paid for with the $ their son had sent home through the years. His wife and children were certainly welcome there. They packed up and went. She was SO grateful to Father. </p>
<p>My kid had Dutch friends who married religiously but not civilly. Apparently, there are stipends for studying at university and those stipends are more generous if you are single. So, she had friends who married religiously when they were graduate students in their mid-20s. They continued to collect the stipend for single students because they were not legally married. Apparently this is not uncommon.</p>