Court Opinion

ID: 9693489
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:44:48.280334+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:47.482839
License: Public Domain

*352Bogdanski, J.
(concurring). I concur but would hold that the present marriage is valid and subject to an action for dissolution on the ground that the court had jurisdiction over the parties and the subject matter, i.e., an existing marriage for twenty-five years. Indeed, the domicil of even one of the parties is sufficient to bestow jurisdiction upon the court. Mazzei v. Cantales, 142 Conn. 173, 112 A.2d 205 (1955). Moreover, recently in Hames v. Hames, 163 Conn. 588, 596, 316 A.2d 379 (1972), we quoted 1 Swift, Digest, p. 20, with approval, which stated, “[a]ny form of words which explicitly constitute a contract and engagement from the parties to each other, and published in presence of, and by the officer appointed by the Statute, will be a valid marriage.”
It is undisputed that the parties were married in the rectory of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church in Meriden, on August 25, 1955, according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church; that they thereafter lived together as husband and wife, raising a family of four children, all of whose birth certificates listed the defendant as their father. There is no statutory enactment in Connecticut which holds that a solemnized marriage is invalid because of the absence of a license. Indeed, General Statutes (Rev. 1949) § 7306 expressly provided that “. . . all marriages which shall be solemnized according to the forms and usages of any religious denomination in this state shall be valid. . . .” To solemnize is “to unite a couple in (marriage) with religious ceremony.” Webster, Third New International Dictionary.
Marriage is strongly favored by the law; Sanders v. Sanders, 52 Ariz. 156, 79 P.2d 523 (1938); Dunham v. Dunham, 162 Ill. 589, 44 N.E. 841 (1896); Kelley v. Kelley, 51 R.I. 173, 153 A. 314 (1931); *353annot., 74 A.L.R. 138; and existing marriages are presumed to be valid and that presumption has been described by the courts as very strong. Sy Joc Lieng v. Sy Quia, 228 U.S. 335, 33 S. Ct. 514, 57 L. Ed. 862 (1913); see annots., 77 A.L.R. 729; 34 A.L.R. 464, 470. It is a presumption that grows stronger with the passage of time, is especially strong when the legitimacy of children is involved, and can only be negated by disproving every reasonable possibility that it is valid. Reed v. Reed, 202 Ga. 508, 43 S.E.2d 539 (1947).