Annulment Of Marriage

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A judicial decision that makes a marriage void and of no effect… (Read more)

What does Annulment of marriage mean in American Law?

The definition of Annulment of marriage in the law of the United States, as defined by the lexicographer Arthur Leff in his legal dictionary is:

A judicial declaration that a supposed state of marriage never existed, as contrasted to divorce which voids a preexisting marital status. In fact, an annulled marriage was never really treated for all purposes as never having existed, e.g., in a state which treated fornication (unmarried sexual intercourse) as a crime, the intercourse of parties to a subsequently annulled marriage would never have been prosecuted. More important, in some jurisdictions alimony could be ordered with respect to this marriage which never was. The grounds for annulment of marriage usually tended to be fraud- or mistake-related, e.g., falsely claimed virginity or potency, or failure to know of close blood relationship between the parties at the time of the marriage. And in some places a consummated marriage, i.e., one in which the parties had had sexual intercourse, could not be annulled. But especially in times and places in which divorce could be granted, if at all, only upon very limited grounds, e.g., solely for proven adultery, annulment was used as an ameliorating device to get married people parted. It was not infrequently the case that “fraud” was loosened almost to promissory misrepresentation (e.g., “She said she wanted babies”), and indeed many alleged grounds, e.g., impotency, were proved collusively, i.e., by the joint perjury of the parties.