The Legal Requirements of Marriage

Lesson 2: The Legal Requirements of Marriage

Marriage, along with the family that often results from it, is one of the oldest institutions in our society. In its origins,  of course, it was not a legal entity at all, but rather an institution that evolved to give backing (social, moral, and religious) to long-term relationships.  It is an institution that brings responsibility and security into what is, essentially, a sexual relationship. It helps to ensure that any children who result from the relationship will be cared for.

At first, marriages were very much like what people often call common-law union, less correctly common-law marriages, today. (Couples who wished to simply began living together and raised a family.) However, society gradually became more complex, and it became necessary to assign legal rights and duties to the parties in a marriage. In this way, marriage became a legal institution. Things like the legitimacy of children and the inheritance of property had to be worked out. If marriages broke up, there had to be ways of determining what belonged to each partner. In this way, the law gradually came to control what had begun as an institution based on sexual relations, love, and trust.

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

In 2005 the Government of Canada passed a law giving same-sex couples, anywhere in the country, the right to marry. As you can imagine, this has been a hot-button issue for many Canadians.  Canada was only the third country to make this historic move.

In Canada, both the federal and the provincial governments play a role in determining what constitutes a legally valid marriage: The Constitution Act, 1867 gave the federal government control over marriage and divorce, but the provinces have each passed a statute controlling the process of solemnizing marriages. In Alberta, the relevant statute is the Marriage Act.


The chart that follows, lays out the seven basic requirements of a legal marriage in Canada. The designated minimum age and the process of solemnizing the marriage are specific to Alberta.