Landry v. Bellanger

Citations

• 120 La. 962
• 45 So. 956
• 1908 La. LEXIS 595

Syllabus

<p>‘ ‘MARRIAGE’CEREMONIAL MARRIAGE.</p> <p>A man and a woman competent to marry went through the marriage ceremony before a Catholic priest and three witnesses, intending to marry; and the priest made on the marriage record of his church an entry reciting that in view of a license issued by the clerk of court he had in the presence of the witnesses required by law received the free and mutual consent of marriage between the parties, and had given them the nuptial benediction, and caused them and the witnesses to sign “the present act of mar-' riage.” The parties had already married before a justice of the peace, or rather gone through the forms of a marriage, since the woman’s first husband was then still living; and the priest was under the impression that said marriage, although no marriage in the eye of the Catholic Church, yet was valid in the eye of the civil law, and that therefore the ceremony before him was intended to be merely a religious marriage: hence he acted under the same license which had done service for the other marriage, and did not send to the clerk of court a certificate of marriage signed by three witnesses, as required by law; and he caused his own record to be signed by only two of the witnesses, no greater number being required for a church record. In a suit contesting the will of the husband in favor of the wife as made in favor of a mere concubine, held, that the ceremony before the priest was a marriage, and not a mere blessing of the null and void marriage before the justice of the peace.</p> <p>[Ed. Note. — For cases in point, see Cent. Dig. vol. 34, Marriage, §§ 42-50.</p> <p>Eor other definitions, see Words and Phrases, vol. 5, pp. 4390-4398; vol. S, p. 7717.]</p> <p>(Syllabus by the Court.)</p>