Table of Contents

TITLE IV - OF HUSBAND AND WIFE

 

CHAPTER I - ON MARRIAGE

Art. 1. The law considered marriage in no other view than as a civil contract.

Art. 2. Such marriages only are recognised by law as are contracted and solemnised according to the rules which it prescribes.

Art. 3. Marriage is a contract intended in its origin, to indure until the death of one of the contracting parties; yet this contract may be dissolved before the decease of either of the married persons, for causes and by reasons determined by law.

 

CHAPTER II - HOW MARRIAGES MAY BE CONTRACTED OR MADE

Art. 4. As the law considers marriage in no other view than that of a civil contract, it sanctions all those marriages where the parties, at the time of making them, were,
1stly, Willing to contract;
2dly, Able to contract; and,
3rdly, Did contract pursuant to the forms and solemnities prescribed by law.

Art. 5. No marriage is valid to which the parties have not freely consented; consent is not free,
1stly, When given to a ravisher, unless it has been given by the party ravished, after she has been restored to the enjoyment of liberty;
2ndly, When it is extorted by violence;
3rdly, When there is a mistake respecting the person whom one of the parties intended to marry.

Art. 6. It is prohibited to the ministers of the gospel and to the magistrates entrusted with the power of celebrating marriages, to marry any male under the age of fourteen years and any female under the age of twelve, and if any of them are convicted of having married such persons, he or they shall be removed from his office, if a magistrate, or deprived for ever of the right of celebrating marriages, if a minister of the gospel.

Art. 7. Persons legally married are until a dissolution of marriage, incapable of contracting another, under the penalties prescribed by the statute of this territory.

Art. 8. Free persons and slaves are incapable of contracting marriage together; the celebration of such marriages is forbidden, and the marriage is void; it is the same with respect to the marriages contracted by free white persons with free people of color.

Art. 9. Marriage between persons related to each other in the direct ascending or descending line, is prohibited.  This prohibition is not confined to legitimate children, it extends also to children born out of marriage.

Art. 10. Among collateral relations, marriage is prohibited between brother and sister, whether of the whole or of the half blood, whether legitimate or illegitimate, and also between the uncle and the niece, the aunt and the nephew.

Art. 11. The minor of either sex, who has attained the competent age to marry, must have received the consent of his or her father and mother, if alive, or the survivor of them if one has died.

Art. 12. Besides the preceding general rulas, there are divers formalities to be fulfilled for the publication and celebration of marriages, which are established by a special act of the legislature.

 

CHAPTER III - OF THE NULLITY OF MARRIAGES

Art. 13. Marriages celebrated without the free consent of the married persons or of one of them, can only be annulled upon the application of the married persons, or of the party whose consent was not free.
When there has been a mistake in the person, the party laboring under the mistake, can alone impeach the marriage.

Art. 14. In the cases embraced by the preceding section, the application to obtain a sentence annulling the marriage, is inadmissible, if the married persons have, freely and without constraint, co-habited together after recovering their liberty, or discovering the mistake.

Art. 15. The marriage of minors contracted without the consent of the father and mother cannot for that cause be annulled, if it is otherwise contracted with the formalities prescribed by law; but such want of consent shall be a good cause for the father and mother to disinherit their children thus married, if they think proper.

Art. 16. Every marriage contracted under the other incapacities or nullities enumerated in the preceding chapter, may be impeached, either by the married persons themselves, or by any persons interested, or by the attorney general.

Art. 17. But in all cases where, conformably to the preceeding article, the action of nullity may be instituted by any interested person, collateral relations or children born of another marriage, during the life of the said married persons, cannot bring such action, unless they have an actual interest therein.

Art. 18. The married person to whose prejudice a second marriage has been contracted, can sue for the nullity of such marriage, even during the life of his or her partner.




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