The Girl with the Long Term Relationship

More fascinating than the fact that the three books by Stieg Larsson: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, and The Girl Who Played with Fire, have captivated world-wide audiences, is the fact that these books by a previously unknown author were all published after Larsson’s unexpected death.

It has been reported that Mr. Larsson did not have a will leaving his estate to be shared by Mr. Larsson’s father and brother. Although Mr. Larsson was in a relationship for more than 30 years with Eva Gabrielsson, he had no will so she was not entitled, as a matter of law, to a share of his estate.

So, of what interest is that to a family law practitioner. Well, one U.S. magazine noted that part of the reason why Ms. Gabrielsson is out of luck is the fact that their home country, Sweden, does not recognize common law marriage. If Larsson and his girlfriend lived in Pennsylvania at the time of his death, instead of Sweden, would Ms. Gabrielsson be entitled to a share of the royalties from the sale of these three books and the proceeds from sale of the movie rights? Unfortunately, she would not.

Effective January 1, 2005, Pennsylvania law no longer recognized common law marriage. Common law marriage was a way people could be married without the necessity of having any ceremony. It arose at a time when it may have been difficult for people to traverse the frontier to get to the nearest town for a legally recognized marriage before a religious official or other legally authorized individual (like a judge or mayor). The Pennsylvania law did provide, however, that any common law marriage that was established before January 1, 2005, would still be given legal recognition. In our example, Ms. Gabrielsson and Mr. Larsson were together for 30 years; so their relationship predated the change in Pennsylvania law. However, their relationship does not meet the requirements for a common law marriage in Pennsylvania.

Despite what most people (well educated or otherwise) may think, there is no magic number of years a couple has to be together in order to have a valid common law marriage. It does not matter if the couple is together for 2 years, 7 years, or 30 years. For there to have been a common law marriage under Pennsylvania law, Larsson and Gabrielsson would have had to have expressed present words of intent (not “will you marry me”, but “we are married”) and they would have had to hold themselves out to the public as husband and wife. It is akin to the situation where everyone thinks they had gotten married, but they just did not get invited to the wedding.

According to an article in the June 25th issue of Entertainment Weekly, Larsson and Gabrielsson tried to keep their relationship private as a way to shield Gabrielsson from any fallout from Larsson’s regular employment as a prominent antifascist journalist. For example, their apartment and all of the incidental bills were in Gabrielsson’s sole name. This would appear to be exactly the opposite of what needs to be established under Pennsylvania law.

While Larsson may have been trying to protect Gabrielsson during his life, he did not enable her to share in his post-mortem celebrity.