Not really that flabbergasting... if a man has been living with multiple women in a common-law arrangement for a prolonged period of time, then it makes sense that the man has financial obligations to all (which would really suck if you got divorced by a whole bunch of them at once). Acknowledging these relationships in retrospect for the purposes of child-support payments and such is a little different that legalizing polygamous marriages.
I mean, just imagine the opposite: a man lives with two women for twenty years, then kicks one out. She wants some measure of financial support from him that a wife would normally be owed, but can't collect because there's another woman involved. Doesn't this guy have the same obligation to her that any man would have to a commonlaw wife?
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