Avi K:
1. Under the law at the time of the Revolution, the Canon law of the Church of England applied to all Christians (even if they were Catholics). Under the law of the time, divorce was an option only by act of parliament, and for all purposes, only if you happened to be the king. The common law definition of marriage was that marriage lasted until death. That was also the Protestant definition. Divorce came later.
2. Remember that “Common law marriage” meant you had a formal ceremony announcing you were married, with witnesses – it was allowed to address a shortage of priests since under Canon law a marriage had to be officiated by a priest (in England it was banned primarily to punish the Catholics by making their children into bastards who couldn’t inherit from the parents).
The legalization of divorce, and the decriminalization of non-marital intimacy was really the radical change that largely guaranteed the future problems we now observe. Allowing men and women to do whatever they feel like, without legal consequences,brings up the question of why have any such rules.