Court Opinion

ID: 7814855
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-07 17:32:08.479368+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:30:34.509482
License: Public Domain

Paul Ward (concurring). My concurrence in this opinion springs from the hope that it will not in the future be misconstrued. It should be obvious to everyone that it deals with an important and sacred item of our social structure. In the first place, it is unthinkable that this court should hold it has absolutely no power to decree valid a marriage in some extreme situation that might hereafter arise. For instance, let’s suppose that these people had lived together for 40 years and had been blessed with several children who in turn had married and reared children. For this court to hold that they were never married would portend consequences of serious magnitude. On the other hand I feel sure that this court does not desire to announce categorically that a marriage license is not necessary, or to put its stamp of approval upon mere cohabitation and dignify that relationship with the status of a legal marriage. Such is not the intent of the opinion in this case. I feel sure that the opinion in this case intends only to approve a marriage relationship [without license] only where; (a) the parties engaged in a ceremony substantially in compliance with that prescribed by the statutes; (b) the parties to the ceremony acted in good faith and believed that they were complying with all the provisions of our statutes; (c) they consummated the ceremony by cohabitation, and; (d) the proof of (a), (b), and (e) mentioned above is clear and convincing. It is my thought that, in this opinion, our court has gone further than it has ever gone before in approving what might be termed a ceremonial marriage. It is easy to invision how this new power assumed and sanctioned by the court could be misconstrued and mis-applied. Therefore, it seems to me that the majority opinion should have laid more stress on the items above mentioned, and, I think, it should have pointed out that this court will"look with disfavor on a “marriage” without a license and will sanction it only if unusual circumstances and the social welfare clearly dictate such action.