Nullity of Marriage (Void Marriage) xxx Annulment of Marriage (Voidable Marriage)
xxx Legal Separation (Relative Divorce)
The DECLARATION OF NULLITY OF MARRIAGE. It is convenient to classify these
void ab initio marriages into five categories (grounds):
(a) void marriages due to lack of requisites;
1. Those contracted by any party below eighteen years of age even with the
consent of parents or guardians;
2. Those solemnized by any person not legally authorized to perform
marriages unless such marriages were contracted with either or both
parties believing in good faith that the solemnizing officer had the legal
authority to do so;
3. Those solemnized without license, except those covered the preceding
Chapter;
4. Those bigamous or polygamous marriages not failing under Article 41;
5. Those contracted through mistake of one contracting party as to the
identity of the other; And
6. Those subsequent marriages that are void under Article 53. [i-search ng
Article 53 of the Family og SABTA!!!]
(b) void marriages due to psychological incapacity;
(c) incestuous marriages;
1. Between ascendants and descendants of any degree;
2. Between brothers and sisters, whether of the full or half blood.
(d) marriages against public policy;
1. Between collateral blood relatives whether legitimate or illegitimate, up
to the fourth civil degree;
2. Between step-parents and step-children;
3. Between parents-in-law and children-in-law;
4. Between the adopting parent and the adopted child;
5. Between the surviving spouse of the adopting parent and the adopted
child;
6. Between the surviving spouse of the adopted child and the adopter;
7. Between an adopted child and a legitimate child of the adopter
8. Between adopted children of the same adopter; and
9. Between parties where one, with the intention to marry the other, killed
that other person's spouse, or his or her own spouse.
(e) bigamous marriages; and
(e) void subsequent marriage, when one of the spouses remarry without
complying with the recordal requirement of the judgment of annulment or
absolute nullity of the previous marriage.
ANNULMENT OF MARRIAGE. The grounds for annulment of marriage must have been
existing at the time of marriage.
(a) Lack of parental consent;
(b)Insanity;
(c) Fraud;
(d) Duress, force, intimidation;
(e) Impotence;
(f) And serious and incurable sexually transmissible disease.
Letter ‘’C’’ which is ‘’Fraud’’ may happen in the following instances and still ground for
annulment of marriage: -
1. Non-disclosure of a previous conviction by final judgment of the other party of a
crime involving moral turpitude;
2. Concealment by the wife of the fact that at the time of the marriage, she was
pregnant by a man other than her husband;
3. Concealment of sexually transmissible disease, regardless of its nature, existing at
the time of the marriage;
4. Concealment of drug addiction, habitual alcoholism or homosexuality or
lesbianism existing at the time of the marriage.
LEGAL SEPARATION (RELATIVE DIVORCE) The grounds for legal separation may
have arisen after the marriage, and may be filed on the following grounds:
(1) repeated physical violence or grossly abusive conduct directed against the petitioner, a
common child, or a child of the petitioner;
(2) physical violence or moral pressure to compel the petitioner to change religious or political
affiliation;
(3) attempt of respondent to corrupt or induce the petitioner, a common child, or a child of the
petitioner, to engage in prostitution, or connivance in such corruption or inducement;
(4) final judgment sentencing the respondent to imprisonment of more than 6 years, even if
pardoned;
(5) drug addiction or habitual alcoholism of the respondent;
(6) lesbianism or homosexuality of the respondent;
(7) contracting by the respondent of a subsequent bigamous marriage, whether in the Philippines
or abroad;
(8) sexual infidelity or perversion;
(9) attempt by the respondent against the life of the petitioner; or (10) abandonment of petitioner
by respondent without justifiable cause for more than 1 year.
