When this was posted I too thought how could a person not know if they were or were not married.
I may have changed my view on that.
Last week friends of ours, English guy Filipino female, both intelligent people, apologised because they had not invited us to their wedding in a catholic church here in Spain. I was surprised how they could have married in a catholic church as both of them are divorced.
Well to cut a long story short, it was only when I asked if the guy had sent off the marriage cert to DWP to claim the additional pension that I discovered they were only blessed by a priest not married. Both absolutely believed they had got married.
LOL