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→Married spouses' rights and responsibilities
There is a common-law presumption that a marriage should not be declared invalid merely because the marriage didn't meet the required formalities, and the court will try to uphold invalid marriages when it can. Section 16 of the provincial ''Marriage Act'' provides, for example, that irregularities in a marriage license won't invalidate a marriage entered into in good faith; section 11 similarly provides that a marriage conducted by an unauthorized person won't be declared invalid if the marriage is unchallenged.
==Married spouses' The rights and responsibilitiesof married spouses==
While a couple is married, the federal ''[http://canlii.ca/t/7vf2 Criminal Code]'' requires each spouse to provide the other with the "necessities of life," whatever that means. Apart from thatthis one provision of the criminal law, there is no legislation that defines the duties involved in spouses owe to each other during their marriage.(Under the common law, however, married spouses had a civil obligation to live together and to provide each other with the companionship and the other benefits of married life, and other a number of other obligations that depended on the spouse's gender.)
When a married couple separates, however, each of the spouses them has certain rights entitlements under the federal ''[[Divorce Act]]'' and the provincial ''[[Family Law Act]]''. Under the ''Divorce Act'', a separated spouse can ask for:
Under the ''Family Law Act'', a separated spouse can ask for:
All these issues except for divorce can be resolved by the spouses' agreement rather than be argued about in court. To get a divorce, the court must make a divorce order.