A Georgia court can grant a divorce where the marriage itself was obtained by force, menace, duress, or fraud.
What the Statute Says
OCGA 19-5-3(4) makes “[f]orce, menace, duress, or fraud in obtaining the marriage” a ground for total divorce. This ground is not about how your spouse behaved during the marriage. It is about how the marriage was brought about in the first place.
Georgia treats such a marriage as no marriage at all. Under OCGA 19-3-5(a), “[m]arriages of persons unable to contract, unwilling to contract, or fraudulently induced to contract shall be void,” so this ground may also be the basis for an annulment.
What Counts as Fraud
OCGA 19-3-4 requires that “the parties must consent thereto voluntarily without any fraud practiced upon either.” It adds one situation by name: “Drunkenness at the time of marriage, brought about by art or contrivance to induce consent shall be held as fraud.”
Staying in the Marriage Waives It
OCGA 19-3-5(b) is the trap. For a spouse “unwilling to contract or fraudulently induced to do so, a subsequent consent and ratification of the marriage, freely and voluntarily made, accompanied by cohabitation as husband and wife shall render the marriage valid.”
So once the pressure is off or the deception is discovered, continuing to live together as spouses cures the defect and closes the ground.
It Can Cost You Alimony
In York v. York, 202 Ga. 50 (1947), the Georgia Supreme Court held that a divorce granted on the ground of duress “amounted to a finding by the jury that no actual contract of marriage ever existed.”
That conclusion has a price: “[t]he existence of a valid marriage is essential to the recovery of alimony.” Winning on this ground can mean winning your way out of an alimony claim – or out of your own.
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This post is a quick overview of the law and is not intended as legal advice. Please feel free to contact our office for a consultation if you have questions about this or any other legal aspects regarding your case!