Section 2.15 Prior Marriage

• Library: Family Law Deskbook and 2014 Supp

5. (§2.15) Prior Marriage

There are two Missouri statutes dealing with bigamy: § 568.010, RSMo 2000, relating to criminal bigamy, and § 451.030, RSMo 2000. Bigamy is prohibited, and the marriage is void under § 451.030. A variety of unusual and complicated problems can arise when a person marries believing that a former spouse has died or that a former spouse has been divorced, as indicated in the annotations to § 451.030. A presumption is raised that the second of two marriages is valid. Expressed differently, the presumption is that the first marriage was dissolved by death, divorce, or annulment before the second marriage was contracted. The burden is on the party attacking the validity of the second marriage to rebut this presumption. Missouri courts have generally held that the second marriage is valid unless all possibilities that the first marriage was dissolved have been negated by the attacking party.

The court in Griggs v. Pullman Co., 40 S.W.2d 463, 464 (Mo. App. E.D. 1931), stated that “[t]he invalidity of the second marriage cannot be found, unless the parties holding the burden of establishing it complete a chain of evidence which will aggressively exclude every indication or suggestion which might conceivably rescue the second marriage from invalidity.” See also Osmak v. Am. Car & Foundry Co., 40 S.W.2d 714 (Mo. 1931); Carr v. Carr, 232 S.W.2d 488 (Mo. 1950). But in Everetts v. Apfel,
214 F.3d 990 (8^th Cir. 2000), in which the annulment decree of a voidable first marriage was entered after the second marriage was contracted, the second marriage was not valid. Because the annulment did not relate back to before the second marriage, the wife did not have a valid second marriage, and therefore, her claim for widow’s Social Security benefits from the second husband failed.

The strong presumption that a second...