liThe question before us is whether appellant Harold Crane and appellee Melissa Taliaferro are legally married for purposes of Arkansas law. The Sеarcy County Circuit Court found that the parties were not married and therefore dismissed appellant’s complaint for divorce for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Aрpellant contends that a common-law marriage exists between the parties and that the circuit court erred in finding otherwise. We find no error and affirm the circuit cоurt’s order dismissing appellant’s complaint.
I. Facts
Appellant and appellee met in either 1981 or 1982 in Texas while appellee was completing her residency aftеr graduation from medical school. In 1982 they moved to Leslie, Arkansas, where they both continue to live, and appellee set up the Leslie Medical Center. In April 1984, thе parties were married in a ceremony at the home of appellee’s |2parents in Mount Pleasant, Texas. Neither of the parties resided in Texas at this time. They did not obtain a marriage license or certificate of marriage in either Texas or Arkansas. At a hearing on appellee’s motion to dismiss, appellee testified that their decision not to obtain a license was purposeful under the belief that their marriage was a contractual arrangement and “the government cannot interfere with the right to contract.” Appellant testified that they did not obtain a license because it is a “God given right for a man and a woman to get married, without аsking the government.”
In 1984, after the ceremony, appellee accepted an offer from a doctor in Texas, Dr. Sessions, to enter into a six-month apprenticeship in alternative medicine. Appellee testified that she stipulated in the contract that she would not move to Texas because Dr. Sessions was concеrned about revealing his methods to someone who might compete with him. She maintained her residence in Leslie and lived in Dr. Sessions’s basement in Texas during the six-month apprenticeship. She returned to Leslie after the apprenticeship and continued her practice in Leslie.
During appellee’s testimony, her voter-registration cаrd for Searcy County dated October 1984 was introduced, indicating that her residence was Leslie and that she had been a resident of Leslie for two years. Her tax returns for thе years 2003, 2005, 2006, and 2007 were also introduced, in which appellee filed as a single person with no dependents. She testified that appellant prepared her returns. Appellant never filed any returns for himself.
| -¡This case arose from an amended complaint for divorce filed by appellant on April 3, 2008. To establish jurisdiction, he allegеd that the parties had been residents of Searcy County for more than six months and that the parties were lawfully married in Mount Pleasant, Texas, on April 14, 1982. Appellee filed a motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, alleging that the parties had never been, nor intended to be, lawfully married. She alleged the following: no certificate of marriage was filed in the State of Texas, Arkansas does not recognize common-law marriages, and the elements for a valid common-law mаrriage in Texas were not present in this case. The circuit court held a hearing, took testimony and other evidence, and entered an order granting appellee’s motion to dismiss, finding “that there is no basis for which this Court can find that a common-law marriage existed between [the parties]” and dismissing the case for lack of jurisdiction. The cоurt noted in its order that a marriage ceremony was conducted but that the basis for the ceremony was to legitimize the marriage in the eyes of God
II. Standard of Review
We review a circuit court’s findings of fact from a bench tidal for clear error, giving due regаrd to the opportunity of the circuit court to judge the credibility of the witnesses. See Ark. R. Civ. P. 52(a); see also Neal v. Hollingsworth,
III. Validity of Common-Law Marriage
Appellant’s first point on аppeal is that the circuit court erred as a matter of law in determining that he and appellee did not have a valid common-law marriage under Texas law. Hе argues that they were married in a ceremony in 1984 and lived together as husband and wife from 1984 until they separated in 2008. We turn to the applicable law.
Under Arkansas law, marriages that “would be valid by the laws of the state or country in which the marriages were consummated and in which the ‘parties then actually resided shall be valid in all courts in this state.” Ark.Code Ann. § 9-ll-107(a) (Repl.2008) (emphasis added). It is undisputed that no legal document of marriage — either an Arkansas marriage license or a Texas certificate of marriage — exists. Further, common-law marriages may not be created by law in Arkansas, although our courts do recognize marriages contracted by law in other states. Brissett v. Sykes,
At the time the parties were married in 1984, proof of a common-law marriage under | .jTexas law required “1) аn agreement presently to be married; 2) living together in this state as husband and wife; and 3) holding each other out to the public in this state as husband and wife.” Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n v. Borum,
Turning to the facts in this case, there was no evidence presented that the parties lived together in Texas after 1982, much less after the ceremony in 1984. The ceremony was held at the home of appellee’s parents in Texas; however, both appellee and appellant lived in Leslie, Arkansas, at the time. The only evidence that either party spent time in Texas after the ceremony was the testimony regarding appel-lee’s apprenticeship with Dr. Sessions. Moreover, it was undisputed that appellee maintаined her residence in Leslie during the apprenticeship and stayed in Dr. Sessions’s
IV Judicial Estoppel
For his second point on appeal, appellant asserts that appellee’s contention that she was never legally married to appеllant violates the doctrine of judicial es-toppel by inconsistent positions. We decline to address this argument as appellant neither raised this issue nor obtainеd a ruling in circuit court, and we will not consider arguments raised for the first time on appeal or when a party has failed to obtain a ruling from the circuit court. See, e.g., Beverly Enterprises-Arkansas, Inc. v. Thomas,
Affirmed.