What's the story with annulments?

jonri
Sat, 14 Jan 2006 00:20:23 +0000

If anyone really needs to know, (s)he should contact the marriage tribunal of the local diocese. Generally speaking, a Catholic residing in the US can get an annulment either in the diocese where (s)he lives or in the one where the marriage ceremony occured. The cost varies a bit depending on the diocese, but it’s relatively inexpensive–generally under $2,000-- and if the fee is a hardship it can be waived or you can pay it off over time.

There are MANY grounds. One of the most common is that the marriage was not entered into freely. Thus, if the reason that two people got married was a premarital pregnancy, that could be a ground for an annulment. Another example of coercion is a marriage which occured because the male wanted to avoid statutory rape charges or was genuinely threatened with bodily harm if he didn’t marry the woman her dad/brothers found him in bed with. But the coercion need not be that extreme.

The Church’s rules about marriage between relatives are stricter than those of most states. Rudy Guiliani’s marriage to his first wife was annulled on the ground that they were something like second cousins and thus not permitted to marry by the Church.

Another common ground is lack of due discretion, which essentially means that from the get-go it was obvious the person was making a very poor decision, e.g., marrying the town drunk because he promised to stay sober if you did. It needn’t be that extreme though–just trying to get across a concept. Thus, the fact that one or both of the people involved were very young or immature can be a grounds. If someone was mentally ill when married, that can be grounds for an annulment. Someone who unknowingly married a schizophrenic could probably get an annulment. As I understand it–I’m just a lay Catholic–the mental illness has to have existed at the time of the marriage and the other partner has to have been unaware of it and be able to state truthfully that if he had known, he would not have married.

Fraud used to be one of the most common grounds, but these days the Church is very strict on that one because it was abused. In the right circumstances, it can be a ground. There’s a famous case in NYC where the daughter of a very, very wealthy and prominent family, a beautiful, kind, gentle young woman got married. It turned out that the guy wasn’t who he said he was. He married her using a phony name, claimed to be a graduate of Harvard College and Stanford Business School; had gotten a job using a resume with these and other wholly invented credentials. The poor girl had believed all of his lies. That marriage was annulled.

An unwillingness to have children, especially if that unwillingness was not conveyed prior to the wedding, can be grounds for an annulment. (I am NOT talking about an inability to have children–that is NOT grounds. )

A fundamental disagreement as to what a marriage is–the sort of failure to come to a meeting of the minds on the terms of a contract that makes a civil contract null and void–can be grounds for an annulment. Based on news accounts of S. Rauch Kennedy’s explanation of why her marriage failed, I think Kennedy really truly had that ground. She wrote about how he thought that as his wife she should be out campaigning for him and should live in D.C. with him and help him in his career. Her concept of marriage after the children came was staying home with the children and being a full time mother and she refused to shuttle back and forth to DC. She stayed back home in the district with their children. It’s hard to imagine that two intelligent young people failed to discuss such basic issues before marriage, especially when the male always intended to be a career politician, but she wrote they didn’t and was stunned when he complained.

This isn’t an exhaustive list; I’m just trying to give a few examples.

You can get an annulment over the objections of one spouse, but it’s a lot harder.

The children of an annulled marriage are legitimate in the eyes of the Church, just as in most cases the children of an annulled marriage are legitimate in the eyes of US civil law. This is really an old wives’ tale.