McDevitt's Estate

Citations

• 280 Pa. 50
• 124 A. 294
• 1924 Pa. LEXIS 463

Syllabus

<p>Husband and wife — Marriage—Claim against decedent’s estate as widow — Evidence—Cohabitation and reputation — Meretricious relation — Presumption of continuance — Rebuttal—Circumstantial evidence.</p> <p>1. Cohabitation and reputation are not marriage, they are circumstances from which marriage may be presumed.</p> <p>2. The presumption of marriage arising from cohabitation and reputation may always be rebutted, and wholly disappears in the face of proof that no marriage in fact had taken place.</p> <p>3. Where cohabitation has been meretricious in its inception, its illicit character is presumed to continue throughout the period during which it has been maintained; this presumption may be rebutted by circumstantial evidence but the circumstances must be such as to prove satisfactorily that the relation was changed to matrimonial union by mutual consent.</p> <p>4. A claim of a woman to share in an estate on the ground that she was married to the decedent, will not be sustained by proof of cohabitation and reputation, joinder with the decedent in a conveyance, and other circumstances, where she testifies that she was never in fact married to him.</p>