Annulment is a legal procedure for declaring a marriage null and void. Unlike divorce,
it is retroactive: an annulled marriage is considered never to have existed.
In
strict legal terminology, annulment refers only to making a voidable
marriage null; if the marriage is void ab initio, then it is automatically
null, although a legal declaration of nullity is required to establish this.
The process of obtaining such a declaration is similar to the annulment process.
Generally speaking, annulment, despite its retrospective nature, still results
in any children born being considered legitimate in the USA.
In
the Roman Catholic Church, a marriage is considered to be a valid contract entered
into between two willing parties, and ratified by Divine sanction. In simplest
terms, it is necessary that it be marriage that is contracted, that it actually
be contracted (i.e., a valid ceremony/contract be performed), and that both
parties enter willingly into the contract. If any of these conditions lack, then
the marriage is not contracted, Divine sanction is not obtained, and there
is in actual (and religious) fact no marriage. An annulment is a finding later
that there was no actual marriage contracted in God's eyes, and therefore no marriage
in reality (from the religious point of view), regardless of civil ordinance
or appearance to humans.
Therefore, an annulment of a marriage
is much more analogous to a finding that a contract of sale was invalid, and hence,
that the property for sale must be considered to have never legally transferred
possession, than analogous to a divorce, which is more like returning the
property after a consumated sale. |
