When I was teaching Ethics, under the topic of marriage our lessons were only limited to legal separation and divorce. I had asked some students then to research annulment and how it differs between the two.
Legal Separation gives the spouses the right to live separately from each other, dissolves the conjugal partnership,
awards the minor children to the innocent spouse, and disqualifies the
offending spouse from inheriting from the estate of the innocent spouse.
Grounds for Legal Separation:
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 six 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.
10- Abandonment of petitioner by respondent without justifiable cause for more than one year.
Divorce is a dissolution of marriage that seeks a judicial ruling to dissolve a valid marriage.
Grounds for divorce are almost the same as in legal separation and vary from one country to another. Legal Separation, however, cannot remarry unlike in Divorce.
Annulment refers to a marriage that is considered valid but there are grounds to nullify the marriage. However, a Declaration of Nullity of Marriage refers to a marriage that is void or invalid from the very beginning as if no marriage ever existed.
Grounds for Annulment:
1. Absence of Parental Consent. A marriage was solemnized and one or
the other party was eighteen (18) years of age or over but below
twenty-one (21) and consent was not given by the parents,
guardian, or person having substitute parental authority. The Petition
of Annulment must be filed within five (5) years of having attained the
age of twenty-one. However, if the parties freely cohabited with each other
as husband and wife after having reached the age of twenty-one (21) a
Petition of Annulment can no longer be filed.
2. Mental Illness. One of either party was of
unsound mind at the moment of the marriage. But if the parties freely
cohabited with each other after he or she came to a reason the law
prohibits the filing of a Petition.
3. Fraud. That the consent of either party was
obtained by fraud unless such party once having knowledge of the fraud
freely cohabited with the other as husband and wife. The petition must
be filed within five (5) of finding out the facts of the fraud.
4. That the consent of either party was obtained by force, intimidation, or undue influence.
Except when the same has ceased and the party filing the petition
freely cohabited with the other as husband and wife. The injured party
must file within five (5) years from the point in time the force,
intimidation or undue influence disappeared or came to an end.
5. One of the other parties was physically incapable of consummating the marriage,
and such incapacity continues and appears to be incurable. The filing
of the Petition of Annulment must be filed within five (5) years after
the marriage.
6. Either party was at the time of marriage afflicted with a sexually transmitted disease
(STD) found to be serious and seems to be incurable. This may also
constitute fraud. The filing of the Petition of Annulment must be filed
within five (5) years after the marriage.
SEPARATION: being separated from your spouse with or
without communication is not grounds for annulment. It does not matter
how many years you are separated. No law annuls or voids a marriage automatically. Only a judge in a court of law can annul, void, or nullify a marriage.
INFIDELITY: is not grounds for annulment.
Grounds for Declaration of Nullity of Marriage:
A – Those contracted by any party below eighteen years of age even
with the consent of parents or guardians; (lack of legal capacity to
marry).
B – 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;
C – Those solemnized without a license except if otherwise covered by other laws.
D – Those bigamous or polygamous marriages except those covered by the laws of presumption of death of the absent spouse.
E -Those contracted through mistake of one contracting party as to the identity of the other;
F – A remarriage shall be null and void if the partition and
distribution of the proprieties of the spouses, the children's presumptive legitimacy, and the judgment of absolute nullity of the
marriage are not recorded in the necessary civil registry and registries
of property.
G – Any psychological incapacity at the time of the marriage
celebration, which prevents either the husband or wife from fulfilling
the essential marital obligations of marriage, shall also be void even
if such incapacity becomes manifest only after the solemnization.
(Psychological incapacity is not automatically lunacy but it does
mean that one or both spouses have abnormal interpersonal behavior or a
psychological characteristic that inhibits the spouse to fulfill the
essential obligations of marriage.)
H – Marriages between ascendants and descendants of any degree;
between brothers and sisters whether full- or half-blood are incestuous
and void from the beginning.
