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There should have been another document, a certificate of marriage, signed by the officiant (the clergyman or the judge who performed the ceremony) and one or two witnesses. They might have actually given it to you after signing, instead of sending it to the registrar themselves.
A marriage license is a license (this is cute) to the officiant to permit him to perform the ceremony; that is, actually, who and what is licensed. There is an expiration date on a marriage license ... if the ceremony is not performed within (IIRC) a year or two, the couple needs a new marriage license to have the ceremony.
One of the oddities of domestic relations law is that, although in several states (the number has been shrinking over the last century) it was possible to get married or become married without a wedding ceremony, in a common law marriage, there was no such thing as "common law divorce". Any marriage - even a common law marriage - required a divorce decree from a court to be dissolved so the parties would be free to marry someone else.
In other words, if someone is in a common law marriage, split up without going to court, and then tries to marry someone else, even in another common law marriage, he is committing bigamy and his second marriage is not valid because his first marriage was not dissolved.
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