Senate Bill No. 40
(By Senator Boley)
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[Introduced January 12, 2000; referred to the Committee
on the Judiciary.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact section seventeen, article one,
chapter forty-eight of the code of West Virginia, one
thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to
validating foreign marriages except under certain
circumstances; and providing definition of "marriage" and
"spouse".
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section seventeen, article one, chapter forty-eight of
the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one,
as amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 1. MARRIAGE.
§48-1-17. Marriage out of state to evade law.
(a) A marriage solemnized in any other country, state or
territory, if valid where solemnized, is valid in this state
unless it is a marriage: (1) Where there is a husband or wife
living, from whom the person marrying has not been divorced; (2)
where the male or female is under fourteen years of age; (3)
between persons of the same sex; or (4) between parties who are
related to each other within and including three degrees of
consanguinity.
(b) "Marriage" means only a legal union between one man and
one woman as husband and wife, and "spouse" refers only to a
person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to validate foreign
marriages with certain exceptions.
This section has been completely rewritten; therefore,
strike-throughs and underscoring have been omitted.