Society & Culture
Google “shortest celebrity marriages,” and the top results all mention Kim Kardashian, who famously announced that she was filing for divorce after just 72 days of wedded bliss. Much more interesting than the Kardashian/Humphries union, however, is the seldom discussed 32-day marriage of Ernest Borgnine and Ethel Merman. The reasons behind their split run the gamut from accusations that Merman’s ego was bruised by Borgnine’s greater fame to the allegation that Borgnine subjected Merman to the dreaded “Dutch Oven.” (Yikes!) But whatever the real reasons behind its demise, Borgnine and Merman’s union was undoubtedly one of the more volatile in Hollywood history.Now, you might be wondering why Kardashian and Borgnine filed for divorce instead of seeking an annulment. Among the uninitiated (read: never-divorced), an annulment seems like a quick and easy way to end a short-lived marriage. In reality, annulment can be a complicated legal procedure and even harder to obtain than a no-fault divorce. Finding its origin in the Latin nullus, meaning “no,” annulment can refer to both the Catholic Church’s procedure for declaring a marriage invalid and the legal process by which a marriage is essentially declared by a court to have never existed. A Catholic annulment is dictated by Canon Law, a body of ecclesiastical law so byzantine (pun intended) that there are actually canon lawyers trained in its interpretation. Therefore, this article will only discuss the civil form of annulment. (For more information on Catholic marriage and annulment, you can look here).So you wake up, Hangover-style, from a three-day blackout with a ring on your finger and a stranger in bed beside you. Can you get an annulment? Possibly. Unlike divorce, which dissolves an otherwise valid marriage, an annulment renders a marriage void—in essence, declaring that you are not only no longer married, but you were never actually married to begin with. The law presumes that a contract is valid until proven otherwise; therefore, you’d have to come up with at least one reason why your marriage wasn’t validly entered into. Grounds for annulment are a matter of state law, so for sake of simplicity we’ll assume you’re filing in Las Vegas and look at Nevada law. Like other states, Nevada distinguishes between void and voidable marriages. A void marriage is one that is invalid from its attempted inception, with no further proceedings necessary; in Nevada, a marriage is void if the parties are related or if one or both of the parties is already married. So in our example, if you wake up next to your brother—or if you happen to have a husband waiting for you back in Poughkeepsie—you’re in luck, your so-called marriage is void.If neither of these circumstances applies, you’d have to then look for a reason to declare your marriage voidable. A voidable marriage is one that is presumed valid, but capable of being declared void for a reason set out by state law. In Nevada, a marriage is voidable if either party is under 18 and did not obtain parental consent; if either party was incapable of entering a marriage for “want of understanding” (mental capacity); if consent was obtained by fraud; or for any other equitable reason that a court could find a contract to be void.* So, depending on the circumstances, if you were underage, drunk, insane, or coerced into marriage by fraud, you could ask for an annulment, keeping in mind that when it comes to fraud, courts typically require that the lie go to the heart of marriage. For example, if a party lies about the intent or capacity to have children, this could be considered fraudulent inducement to marry.To complicate matters, even if your disastrous union appears to be voidable, a court could still refuse to grant an annulment if it finds that you and your spouse persisted in the marriage in spite of its voidable nature. For instance, if the parties become of age, sober up, restore their sanity, or discover the fraud, AND continue to live together as man and wife, they are no longer eligible for an annulment. What does this mean for you? Once you’ve figured out your marriage is voidable, you’d better move fast—in other words, inaction equals consent.So what if you’re unable to find grounds for annulment, or if you’ve moved too slowly and your once voidable marriage has become valid? Not to despair; you’ll just have to get divorced like everyone else. Or perhaps, once you’ve sobered up, regained your sanity, or come of age, you’ll realize that the schlub in bed next to you isn’t so bad after all. Even Ernest Borgnine has been happily married to his fifth wife for the past 38 years, and if that lady can stand being Dutch-ovened by a 90-something Academy Award winner, there’s hope for us all.*You may have noticed that “failure to consummate” is missing from this list. In Nevada, the inability or unwillingness of a party to seal the deal, so to speak, is not grounds for annulment. However, a few states (such as Ohio) permit annulment based on failure to consummate the marriage.