Do you want your wife to use your name?

[ulmont]

If Farmer Bob had enough property that people are going to be fighting over it than almost certainly he has a will or would have gotten officially married.

This turns out not to be true, is my point.  Duane Allman and Otis Redding (IIRC for Redding; definitely for Duane Allman) both had multiple estate claimants with viable common-law marriage claims.

[Valmy]

If Farmer Bob had enough property that people are going to be fighting over it than almost certainly he has a will or would have gotten officially married.

This turns out not to be true, is my point.  Duane Allman and Otis Redding (IIRC for Redding; definitely for Duane Allman) both had multiple estate claimants with viable common-law marriage claims.

My point is that it was an useful expedient that made sense back in the frontier days that has anachronistically held on because that is the kind of stupid shit we do.