Article 35 of the Family Code: Marriages void from the beginning

In plain words:

1. A party was below 18. The parents' consent does not save it. For ages 18 to 21, missing parental consent is a different rule: the marriage is voidable, not void (Article 45).
2. The officer had no legal authority. For example, a person who is not one of the officers allowed by Article 7, such as a judge, priest or minister. The exception: the marriage is not void on this ground if either or both parties believed in good faith that the officer had authority.
3. There was no marriage license. The exceptions are the license-free marriages in the chapter just before it (Articles 27 to 34), such as a couple who lived together as husband and wife for at least five years without a legal impediment (Article 34).
4. The marriage is bigamous or polygamous. One party was still married to someone else. The exception is the case in Article 41: the earlier spouse had been absent for four consecutive years (two in danger-of-death cases), the spouse present believed on good grounds that the absent spouse was dead, and a court declared the absent spouse presumptively dead in a summary proceeding.
5. One party was mistaken about who the other person was. This is a mistake of identity, not a mistake about character, money or past.
6. It is a later marriage that is void under Article 53. A former spouse who remarries before the judgment, the property partition and the delivery of the children's presumptive legitimes are recorded (Article 52) enters a void marriage (Article 53).

This is how the Family Code words the license and bigamy cases. The stored text copies the E-Library page word for word, including its small typing errors.

The Family Code has two separate tracks:

• Void (Articles 35 to 38, 44 and 53, the list given in Pulido). The marriage never existed in law. The court case is a petition for declaration of absolute nullity. There is no deadline to file it (Article 39).
• Voidable (Article 45). The marriage is valid until a court annuls it. The court case is a petition for annulment, and each ground has its own deadline under Article 47, most of them five years. Some grounds are cured if the spouses freely live together afterward.

Article 4 of the Family Code connects the two. A missing essential or formal requisite makes a marriage void, except as stated in Article 35(2). A defect in an essential requisite makes it voidable. A mere irregularity in the formal requisites does not affect validity, but the people responsible can be held liable.

• No license. In Abbas v. Abbas (2013), the Supreme Court said a wedding ceremony and a signed marriage contract do not cure the absence of a valid marriage license. That marriage was void.
• The five-year exception is strict. In Niñal v. Bayadog (2000), decided under the Civil Code rule that came before Article 34, the Court said the five years of living together must be the years immediately before the wedding, with no legal impediment during that time.
• Void marriages and bigamy. In Pulido v. People (2021), the Court held that a person accused of bigamy may prove in the criminal case that a marriage was void from the start, even without an earlier court declaration. It also said the Article 40 requirement "is merely for purposes of remarriage". The rule for remarrying did not change.