Unmarried woman wins court battle for widows benifit
 

At first I thought this was gonna be about a sad lonely old bat who wanted the money for no reason, but this pretty much spells it out:
On the one hand, I absolutely agree that marriage should be incentivised, as having two married parents is one of the best indicators that a child will be successful, but I was thinking more tax breaks than post-death things, and after being in a committed relationship for nearly a quarter of a century (and having four kids with one man!) it's clear that in this case, the wedding would just be a piece of paper.

I don't think people should marry just to gain access to benefits like that. They should probably change the marriage requirement to something like being on a long term relationship and co-habiting with them. I'm glad this woman won her case.

So currently, common-law marriage does not exist in law in the UK?