Thomas v. Thomas

Citations

• 124 Pa. 646
• 17 A. 182
• 1889 Pa. LEXIS 1069

Syllabus

<p>1. When a marriage has been regularly solemnized, it is presumed to be valid until the contrary is shown, and when that has been done by competent and satisfactory evidence that presumption, in respect of civil rights, must give way to the actual fact established.</p> <p>2. While a well-founded belief in the death of her first husband, will relieve a woman marrying a second time from the pains of adultery, etc.: § 6, act of March 13, 1815, 6 Sm. L. 288, it cannot validate her second marriage, if in fact her first husband was living when it was solemnized.</p> <p>3. The presumption of death arising from the absence of a person for seven years, unheard from, is not conclusive, but stands as competent proof of death only until it is successfully rebutted by competent and satisfactory evidence to the contrary.</p> <p>4. Wrherefore, if, at the time of a woman’s second marriage, her first and undivorced husband was in fact in full life, whatever the time of his absence and her belief as to his death, she was incapable of contracting the second marriage and it was therefore void.*</p>