Case ID: va_29/html/0484-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The Commonwealth v. Edmund Perryman and Kiturah Perryman.
    June, 1830.
    Statute Prohibiting Certain Marriages — Construction.— It Is provided by statute, that “if the brother hath married or shall marry his brother’s wife,” the-marriage shall be dissolved, the parties fined &c. Held, the marryintj a brother’s widow, is an of-fence within the statute.
    This was a case adjourned to this court from the circuit court of King & Queen.
    It was an information against the defendants, founded on the 17th section of the marriage act, 1 Rev. Code, ch. 106, p. 399, charging, that Edmund Perryman, unlawfully, willfully and incestuously, intermar■ried with and took to wife Kiturah Perryman, the wife and widow of Joseph Perryman ^deceased, who was the brother of Edmund. The defendants pleaded not guilty. Upon the trial, the jury found specialty, that the defendant Edmund did intermarry with the other defendant Kiturah ; that the said Kiturah had been the wife, and was at the time of the marriage the widow of Joseph Perryman, then deceased; and that Joseph was the brother of Edmund : and the jury referred the question to the court, whether, upon this state of facts, the defendants were guilty of a violation of the marriage act? Which question the circuit court, at the instance of the defendants, adjourned to this court, together with the usual question, what judgment ought to be given in the case?
    The marriage act (above referred to) provides, inter alia, that, “if the brother hath married or shall marry his brother’s wife” —‘ ‘every person or persons, so unlawfully married, shall be separated by the definitive sentence or judgment of any supe-riour court of law” &c. The defendants contended, that, as Joseph Perryman, the brother, was dead, and the woman who had been his wife, was now no longer his wife, ■but his widow, and as this was a penal law, which ought to be strictly construed, therefore, the case was not within the statute.
   PER CURIAM.

The circuit court ought to give judgment upon the verdict rendered against the defendants, declare the nullity of the marriage, and cause them to give bond with surety, that they will not cohabit hereafter._