Oh no! Recently a Western Pennsylvania couple found out that 49 years of marital bliss was a fairy tale. The clergy member who performed the wedding ceremony simply did not file the marriage certificate with the Court. When, 49 years later, the happy couple went to apply for pension benefits they could not produce the marriage certificate.
While the couple sorts this out in Pennsylvania, I began to wonder what would happen in Ohio if a marriage certificate went missing or the validity of it questioned.
For years and years, Ohio recognized common law marriage, where no marriage certificate was required to deem a couple officially and legally married. If you held yourself out as a married couple, lived together and acted like a married couple, you were deemed married. That all changed in 1991 when Ohio's legislature determined that it would no longer recognize common law. Not to worry... If you were married before 1991 and don't have a marriage certificate, an Ohio probate court will be able to determine the validity of your common law marriage, looking to establish that you did, in fact, hold yourself out as a married couple.
After 1991, Ohio requires that your marriage be "solemnized" or officially performed by someone recognized by Ohio law as being authorized to marry people. In Ohio, judges of the county courts, municipal courts and probate courts may perform the marriage ceremony without any special license; however, ministers do need to be licensed. If you get married before a judge or a licensed minister, your marriage is presumed to be valid.
Within 30 days of the marriage ceremony, the minister or judge who solemnized the marriage is required to file the marriage certificate with the probate court of the county in which the ceremony occurred. If the marriage certificate is not timely filed, the minister or judge performing the ceremony is subject to a fine. If the marriage certificate is missing or lost, Ohio courts would seem to allow those who witnessed the ceremony to give an eyewitness account (Yes! I saw Sally and Tom get married and exchange the I dos!).
What if your minister did not obtain the license necessary to perform the ceremony? Looks like Ohio will uphold the marriage unless public policy is violated. In the case of Dodrill v. Dodrill, N.E.2d, 2004 WL 938476 (Ohio App. 4 Dist.), 2004 -Ohio- 2225, the Fourth District Court of Appeals upheld as valid a marriage performed by an unlicensed minister, stating that Ohio public policy favors sustaining marriages that are not "incestuous, polygamous, shocking to good morals, unalterably opposed to a well defined public policy, or prohibited.” (citing Mazzolini v. Mazzolini (1958), 168 Ohio St. 357, 358).
In sum, Ohio favors sustaining marriages. A good thing! For additional information, Carol Gasper can be reached at clg@clgasperlaw.com.
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