Jackson v. Jackson

Citations

• 82 Md. 17
• 34 L.R.A. 773
• 33 A. 317
• 1895 Md. LEXIS 93

Syllabus

<p>Marriage and Legitimacy — Proof of Marriage by General Reputation — Effect given to Marriage Valid by the lex loci Contractus— Evidence of Law of Another State — Bill of Exceptiotis..</p> <p>If in order to establish legitimacy, a party endeavors to prove that the marriage of his parents was celebrated at a particular place and by particular ceremony, and fails to produce sufficient evidence to that effect, he cannot then rely on general reputation and cohabitation to establish the alleged marriage.</p> <p>To the general rule that a marriage-valid according to the law of the State where celebrated is valid everywhere, there are certain exceptions.</p> <p>The plaintiff in this case, in order to prove her legitimacy, sought to establish the marriage of her parents by evidence of general reputation, cohabitation and acknowledgment in Pennsylvania, where she was born, as well as by evidence of the same elsewhere. Held, that since there is no statute in Maryland declaring that a marriage of whose existence there is no other proof than general reputation shall be void, and as the statutory provisions concerning the solemnization of marriages in Maryland relate to form and, ceremony only, the Courts of this State will recognize the Pennsylvania marriage as valid if it was valid under the laws of that State.</p> <p>A practising lawyer of another State is competent to testify as to the requisites of a valid marriage in that State.</p> <p>Where the point at issue was whether certain parties were married or not, the evidence relied on to establish the marriage being general reputation and cohabitation, and where the parties separated after having lived together, it is not competent to ask a witness whether he knew the general reputation of the woman after the separation for chastity while she and the man were living together.</p> <p>To .establish a marriage by reputation, no evidence of any kind of reputation but a general one is admissible. If a man and a woman are generall