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In England, they had civil marriages as early as the 14th century…if you appeared to be married, you were. And it was good enough for court proceedings.
As for employment benefits…this has largely been a non factor for more than a decade in many places, where you don’t need to be married for many places to give you benefits.
Polygamy, as I have stated before, is a dumb law, as for as I am concerned.
The Council of Trent required a marriage license because the Catholic church wanted to be the one to deem a marriage legal or not…it did not want to allow divorces and polygamy.
