Then fix the outdated laws so people can enjoy those human connections without all the risky loss/gain baggage.
Your friends anecdata is entirely irrelevant until they've separated and we hear about how that plays out, before it's even remotely worth hearing as still meaningless anecdata.
Even in those seven, it's not something that happens automatically. For example, in Utah, it only applies to those "who hold themselves out as and have acquired a uniform and general reputation as husband and wife."[1]
If my meaningless anecdata isn't remotely worth hearing about, then what's to be said about your intentionally misleading irrelevant statement?
*Oops:
[0] https://www.ncsl.org/human-services/common-law-marriage-by-s...
[1] https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title30/Chapter1/30-1-S4.5.html?v=...
It generally does not require a ceremony (but it does usually require an explicit mutual agreement), and living together does matter (cohabitation is commonly a requirement or evidence of common law marriage), but other than that you are right that publicly presenting as married is often a requirement (and otherwise is evidence).
Here’s info from Texas as an example, which is more required-elements-based and includes cohabitation: https://guides.sll.texas.gov/common-law-marriage#:~:text=Tex...
And here is Colorado, which is more evidence based and does not identify cohabitation as even a form of evidence (though it does have joint ownership of property): https://pitkincounty.com/288/Common-Law-Marriage
Utah is more specific requirements, and includes both cohabitation and how the couple presents publicly, but no ceremony: https://www.utcourts.gov/en/self-help/case-categories/family...
In a country that celebrates sociopathy, manipulation of others, & psychopathy to such a high degree, I think the laws are perfectly fine as they protect exceptionally vulnerable people.
What sort of resources do you actually think there are for a spouse that is able to escape after having been isolated and abused for years, that oftentimes becomes responsible for not only their own well-being, but also childrens? The answer is practically nothing aside from maybe your very basic necessities to sustain life.
I also think you’re really missing a major point but that’s a tangent I’m not going to go on.
[edit]: Revised “What sort of resources do you actually think there are for a spouse that’s been isolated and abused for years” to “What sort of resources do you actually think there are for a spouse that is able to escape after having been isolated and abused for years”
We need better general solutions in this area, a lot of the separation-related problems would vanish. Job-separation and spouse-separation overlap substantially, and it's rather harmful as-is when spouses are incentivized to stay in abusive relationships if they wouldn't even receive significant support separated from an abusive deadbeat anyways. They become trapped.