PatriotsReign

I just heard on the news that China will make all marriage records public so that anyone can look up to see if someone is lying. Is this information available in the US? (anyone?)

That way, even if someone is lying about not being married, you can easily look it up for the truth.

Way to go China!

China's love cheats set for online exposure

"China's exploding wealth has created a culture of secret mistresses and second wives. Now officials are putting marriage records online so lovers and spouses can check for cheats.

State media has said Beijing and Shanghai will be among the first places to put marriage databases online this year. The plan is to have records for all of China online by 2015."

China's love cheats set for online exposure | World news | The Guardian

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"No one walking this earth knows what is truly righteous"

Harry Boy

In this country if your wife or daughter gets RAPED I don't think the Rape victim can even find out if the Raper has Diseases that can kill, can you just imagine how offended and hurt a Cheating Whore Monger would feel if he knew his new girl friend could legally find out if he was married, God thats terrible, what about the Cheaters Clivil Liberties, I have to sit down it's to much to even think about.

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Harry Boy (Genius)

In The Absence Of Law And Order Society Will Surely Destroy Itself

Mrs.PatsFanInVa

Does anyone here look like your personal "Google-Bot?"

Easy enough to check, PR. Try Google - it's your friend.

Under The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Title 5 of the United States Code, section 552, any person has the right to request access to marriage records:


Marriages | Marriage Licenses | Marriage Certificates | Marriage Records | Marital Status | Free Marriage Records - GovMarriageRecords.org

It is, however, difficult to do unless you're willing to pay someone to do it for you as part of a bigger background check.

Kinda as it should be, I think. Identity theft is a huge problem and making that kind of information easily accessible to anyone who knows your name sounds pretty risky. Your marriage license has a considerable amount of information on it - birthday, address, etc. It's a short ride to finding out someone's social security number as well, isn't it?

If you suspect your girlfriend/boyfriend/betrothed to be a bigamist you probably shouldn't be marrying him or her in the first place.


Most marriage records are considered public information, but only certain people can access them easily. The bride or the groom may request public marriage records by including proof of identity with the request. Copies of public marriage records are also available to those who have a documented judicial purpose from an official agency, such as an heir attempting to claim a benefit. Marriage records may also be made public by court order.

If you are a genealogist or family historian, you may request uncertified copies of public marriage records after certain periods of time—for instance, after 50 years if the members of the married couple are both known to be deceased. Direct line descendents may waive these waiting periods by proving their relationship to the married people and providing proof of death of the bride and groom

The Brandon Five

I think there is a difference between publishing info and making it available by request. Not a huge difference, but I think that in the China scenario you could just check the guy out on your smartphone without even leaving the nightclub.

You're married? No soup for you.

PatriotsReign

Also, people don't need every bit of information on a marriage liscense. All they'd need to know is whether or not someone is married. I think we could/should make that little bit of info available to anyone.

Go onto a webite, key in the name and get a "Married to so & so" or "Single, not married" answer. There is nothing wrong with making such information public. Plus, I'd LOVE to see the number of people who would panic at the thought (as if they have the right to date someone and not tell them they're married)

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"No one walking this earth knows what is truly righteous"

reflexblue

What happened you marry someone that was already married?

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S.H.E.S.
I Likes Spikes.

Mrs.PatsFanInVa

Really? And how do you think this could happen without giving the other information right along with it?

Key in a name, huh? Ok....I put in Mr. Patriots Reign...and lo&behold, there are 43,227 men by that name in the United States - so how do we narrow it down? First by age, then by race, then by state, then by city, then by address, then by what? SS number, perhaps? I mean, how are you going to know if you have the correct John Doe or Hu Lin Woo?

You can't possibly just put someone's name in a search engine and not either already know or quickly find out all sorts of other vital and probably personal information in some insane attempt to find out if he or she is safe to go home and have sex with. The fact is, if it's a stranger you're picking up and planning on taking home with you, his or her marital status is probably one of the latter things you need to worry about. Much more immediately important to find out if he's a serial killer, a rapist or HIV+.

It's so funny how so many people here are super concerned about government interference in their lives, worried to death that the government will attempt to regulate what they eat, what their kids learn in school, what kind of car they should buy, what kind of light bulbs they should use, and yet are all in favor of the government maintaining huge databases full of personal information and making it all available to anyone who asks.

Perhaps, since you seem to think China's got a good idea going on here, we should emulate them in a few other aspects, as well - starting with a "state media" like the one which made this marriage-checking announcement which will tell us what's happening in our little corner of the world.

PatriotsReign

I wouldn't want the gov't to run it...I'd like it to be a private company.

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"No one walking this earth knows what is truly righteous"

PatriotsReign

Not at all Flex...but I can't think of anything sadder than someone unknowingly falling for a married woman/man and all the time thinking they were single.

Such a person should be publically humiliated, wouldn't you agree?

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"No one walking this earth knows what is truly righteous"

Mrs.PatsFanInVa

Oh sure, that's great, PR.

I take it you're also fine with all those annoying little ads which pop up on your computer for Pizza Hut right after you've ordered a pizza, too, right? And companies that share your shopping habits with spammers and Internet advertizers?

Personally, I don't worry too much about what the government knows about me...after all, I fill out a census form every so many years and keep them abreast of any changes pretty willingly - but I'll be dammed if I'm happy with some private company getting ahold of my personal information - especially with the intention of giving it out to anyone who finds out my name and asks for it.

Who's going to pay this private company, anyhow? Are the people looking for the information going to be charged a fee? If so, that already exists in a more difficult form and I linked you to one of them in my first post. Or is this going to be something that our precious "don't raise our taxes" taxes pay the government to pay someone else for?

Logically speaking, there are just so many holes in it, PR.

1) If you're that suspicious of someone, don't go home with them, don't date them, don't trust them. Check them out the normal way....take it slow, meet their friends, find out where they work, where they live, what church they go to.

2) Being able to check someone's marital status on line is just bogus as a "safety" measure. Much like the dude who removes his wedding ring before hitting the bar, someone intent on fraud is certainly going to be prepared with a fake name to give you - most especially so if there is going to be no other method of identifying the person whose marital status is in question. If the only info being given out is the person's name and marital status there is absolutely nothing to prevent Mr.PFnV from saying he is Mr. PatriotsReign and getting away with it.

3) Like I asked before - if a name is all you have to go on, and they are not going to verify street address, age, race, etc., how are you going to know which Jane Doe you've hooked up with? One of the 3,000,000 married ones or one of the 3,000,000 single ones?

4) What about separated couples? Where are they going to fall?