Court Opinion

ID: 9853712
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:52:57.331186+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:02.418001
License: Public Domain

Duckworth, C. J.,
dissenting. The decisions in Eubanks v. Banks, 34 Ga. 407, and Perkins v. Levy, 158 Ga. 896, cited in the majority opinion, involved ceremonial marriages. Such marriages have been dealt with and provided for by the legislature. When one reads the various Code sections providing for the issuance of marriage licenses, by whom the ceremony must be performed, the return by him of the license to the ordinary and the recording thereof, as well as many other regulations, he must be impressed with the thought that he had found all of our law providing for marriages, yet common-law marriages are legal in this State, without conforming to such statutory requirements. Code § 53-104 refers to marriages in the same way that all other legislation refers to them. It is reasonable, therefore, to assume that it, like all other legislation on the subject, refers to ceremonial marriages and not to common-law marriages. There is good solid reason for so construing it, for it declares that the issue of the void marriage there mentioned, before it is “annulled and declared void, by a competent court,” shall be legitimate. Who ever heard of a suit in Georgia courts to annual or declare void a common-law marriage? There is no record that I know about of such proceeding. Such marriages are conceived in secret, and are generally brought out in the open only when it is thought they will get something for nothing, or protect from legal difficulties. Undoubtedly the legislature knew this when approving the Code section. How can the true wife and children or others institute action to annul something they do not know exists? On the other hand, ceremonial marriages—the only kind the legislature has undertaken to regulate—are wit*285nessed by others, and put on the public record, thus informing the world of their existence. The humane objective of § 53-104 to protect the innocent child is laudable as relates to ceremonial marriages, but when extended to children of bigamous common-law marriages a floodgate for fraud and injustice to others, including legitimate children, is opened. It would permit dishonest mothers of illegitimate children to frame a story of common-law marriage to deceased men and thereby imperil the security of their lawful wives and children.
While neither Williams v. Lane, 193 Ga. 306, nor Christopher v. Christopher, 198 Ga. 361, dealt with this question, and consequently they are not authority for this dissent, yet the expressions therein, strongly indicating agreement with this dissent, were approved by all members of the court. Though Irving v. Irving, 152 Ga. 174, is by only five Justices, it seems to be sound in so far as common-law marriages are concerned, and it supports this dissent.
I therefore think that the law should not sanction the wilful open defiance of the law that one with a living spouse practices when he pretends to enter into an unwritten unrecorded and unwitnessed bigamous marriage. No decision of this court has heretofore so held, and I think safeguards against fraud, defiance of law, and the welfare of a lawful spouse and legitimate children dictate that we should not now so hold. I would affirm the judgment.
I am authorized to state that Candler, Justice, joins in this dissent.