Marriage: Requirements, Validity and Annulment: every key term you need (+ practice quiz)
25 flashcard terms for Family Law Topic 1, written to match the course framework. Study them here, then drill them as interactive flashcards, or test yourself with the 15-question quiz — free, no account needed.
A marriage formed by satisfying statutory formalities: a license issued by the state, solemnization before an authorized officiant, and usually witnesses plus registration of the certificate.
Capacity to marry
Each party must be of statutory age, mentally able to understand the nature of the marital relationship, and free of any existing undissolved marriage to another person.
Loving v. Virginia
The 1967 decision striking Virginia's antimiscegenation statute under both equal protection and due process, holding that the freedom to marry is a fundamental personal right.
Obergefell v. Hodges
The 2015 decision holding that same-sex couples have a fundamental right to marry and that states must license and recognize such marriages on equal terms.
Zablocki v. Redhail
Invalidated a statute barring marriage licenses to parents behind on child support, applying heightened scrutiny to direct and substantial interference with the right to marry.
Turner v. Safley
Held that prison inmates retain a constitutionally protected right to marry, since marriage carries emotional, expressive, and legal significance beyond cohabitation.
Common law marriage
A marriage formed without a license where the parties presently agree to be married, cohabit, and hold themselves out publicly as spouses; recognized in only a shrinking minority of states.
Words of present intent
The requirement that common law spouses exchange an agreement to be married now, not a promise to marry in the future; an engagement plus cohabitation is insufficient.
Holding out
Public representation as a married couple through shared surnames, joint tax filings, introductions, and community reputation, used to prove an informal marriage.
Void marriage
A union invalid from inception that needs no decree to be a nullity, typically bigamous or incestuous, and attackable by third parties and after a party's death.
Voidable marriage
A union valid until a party obtains an annulment decree; only the protected spouse may attack it, and ratification after the impediment ends cures the defect.
Bigamy
Entering a marriage while a prior marriage remains undissolved; the second union is void in nearly every state and may also be a criminal offense.
Presumption of validity of the most recent marriage
A strong evidentiary presumption that the latest ceremonial marriage is valid, forcing the challenger to prove the earlier marriage was never ended by death, divorce, or annulment.
Putative spouse doctrine
Protects a party who married in good faith believing the union valid, allowing property and support relief even though the marriage was legally void.
Annulment
A judicial declaration that a marriage was defective at its formation; unlike divorce it treats the union as never validly created, though modern statutes still allow ancillary relief.
Fraud going to the essentials
The majority ground for annulment, requiring a misrepresentation about sexual relations, procreation, or religious rites rather than lies about wealth or temperament.
Duress as a marriage defect
Coercion by threats that overcome a party's free will, rendering the consent to marry ineffective and the marriage voidable at that party's request.
Incurable impotence
An inability to consummate the marriage that is unknown to the complaining party at the wedding; a traditional voidable ground in most annulment statutes.
Consanguinity restriction
A prohibition on marriage between close blood relatives such as siblings, parent and child, or aunt and nephew; violations render the marriage void.
Affinity restriction
A bar on marriage between persons related by marriage rather than blood, such as stepparent and stepchild; increasingly narrowed or repealed by modern codes.
Marriage evasion statute
A law voiding a marriage contracted in another state by domiciliaries who left specifically to escape their home state's restrictions on marriage.
Lex loci celebrationis
The choice-of-law rule that a marriage valid where celebrated is valid everywhere, subject only to a strong public policy exception in the forum state.
Covenant marriage
An optional stricter marital status offered in a few states requiring premarital counseling and limiting divorce to fault grounds or long separation.
Heart balm actions
Common law suits such as breach of promise to marry, alienation of affections, and criminal conversation, abolished by statute in the great majority of states.
Conditional gift theory of the engagement ring
The prevailing modern approach returning the ring to the donor when the marriage does not occur, usually without regard to who ended the engagement.