Feehley v. Feehley

Urner, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant and appellee were married in November, 1891. A daughter was bom as a result of their union. In September, 1896, they were divorced.

Fifteen years later, at the instance of the daughter, then grown to young womanhood, they were re-united. There were intervening marriages by both parties which were dissolved by judicial decree, the appellant having had one, and the appellee two, such intermediate experiences. The re-union occurred in September, ' 1915. In October of the following year the appellee filed her bill of complaint against the appellant for alimony, and for the division and adjustment of their joint property interests, on the ground that she had been forced from their home by his cruelty and vicious conduct.

The main defense to the suit is based upon the theory that the parties were not lawfully re-married and therefore do not sustain the relationship upon which the right to maintain the suit is predicated. For some months prior to the time when the re-marriage is alleged by the bill to have occurred, the appellant was liv ⁵⁶⁷ ing as a boarder at tbe home of the appellee and of their daughter. The question of their being married again had been under consideration and the appellant was inclined to the opinion that no ceremony was necessary inasmuch as they were both Catholics, and in the view of their church the original marriage was still subsisting.. On the occasion, however, of a call at the home by the priest of the parish, a ceremony was performed upon whose nature and effect depends, in large measure, the decision of the present controversy.

It is to be determined whether a marriage was then celebrated with religious rites, and if so, whether it should be held to be valid notwithstanding the conceded fact that no license for the marriage had been obtained as rer qnired by law. The appellee and her daughter both testified that on tbe occasion in question a wedding ceremony was performed in full accordance with the ritual of tbe Catholic Church, that the priest placed his stole about his neck, had some holy water brought and a ring produced, and, taking a book from his pocket, read the sendee and solemnized tbe marriage in the customary fotm, including tbe usual questions and answers as to tbe mutual consent of the parties, and concluded with a blessing and tbe declaration that they were now husband and wife. The appellant testified that the ceremony was not a marriage, hut simply a blessing. He stated that something in Latin was said by tbe priest and that holy water and a ring were used.

The testimony of the priest was to the effect that he could not re-marry the parties because the church does not recognize a divorce, and therefore tbe first marriage, which was solemnized in the chnrcli, was to bo regarded as being still in force, but that he pronounced a blessing upon their agreement to resume the relations of matrimony. He said that he could not recall exactly what he did on that occasion. In answer to tbe question as to what it was his intention to do, be said: “Just to have them become husband and wife.” He thought that he may have put on ⁵⁶⁸ his stole, and that a ring was in fact used when they were aslced to renew their consent, but he could not recall whether of not holy water was brought and applied. It is the settled law of this State that “some religious ceremony” must be “superadded to the civil contract” in order that a marriage may be valid. “The law, however, does not prescribe the form, nor according to the rites of what church, the marriage shall be celebrated.” Denison v. Denison, 35 Md. 380 .

Upon the evidence in the Kecord before us there can be no doubt that there was a ceremony in connection with the event now under, inquiry, and that it was religious in its character. It was conducted by a duly ordained minister in the formal exercise of his sacred office. It was unquestionably intended to be an essential feature of the new marital agreement into which the parties were entering. The priest,'and the man and woman before him, understood that he was officiating there in order that they might live together in lawful wedlock.

The words and emblems he employed were strictly appropriate to that object. The sole purpose of his presence and ministration was to give religious sanction to their re-union. In our judgment that result was effectually accomplished, and the validity of the re-marriage is not open to question on the ground that it was not solemnized by a religious ceremony. The contention that the failure to secure a license rendered the marriage void must likewise be overruled.

While the statute provides that no persons within the State “shall be ■joined in marriage until a license shall have been obtained from the clerk of the Circuit Court for the county in which the marriage is to be performed, or if in Baltimore City, from the clerk of the Court of Common Pleas,” or unless banns shall have been published as therein described, or except in the case of marriages according to the ceremony used by the Society of Quakers, and while