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“Mary and Samuel Jones.”

I worked it all out. What I spelled out in my opinion was that marriage is also an economic, as well as a legal, arrangement. In this case there had been spelled out a situation in which the purposes of the workmen's compensation were fulfilled. Clearly the purpose of the workmen's compensation act was to see that the natural dependents, that the people that the workman had supported in his life time, continued to receive a portion of that support when he was killed in the course of his employment. In this case this man had lived with this woman exclusively in a happy marital, but non-ceremonial marital, relationship and had done his full economic duty as the head of the family. The typical working class habit of the giving of the money to the wife and the wife being the spender, the saver and apportioner of the money had been followed out. There was true economic relationship entering into this marriage, as well as a social relationship, which was evidenced by the children and the neighbors who thought of them always as married, having never known them in any other way. I held it was a true common law marriage and she was entitled to the widow's rights under it.

The argument on the other side was that it wasn't a legal marriage. A man can, after all, support his mistress.