Durgon v. McGuire

3 Ill. Cir. Ct. 310

• Court: Illinois Circuit Court
• Decided: October 1, 1868
• Status: Published

Opinion

Williams J.:—

The jury are instructed by the court that to constitute a marriage valid and binding upon the parties thereto, it is not necessary that all the statutory requirements in reference thereto should have been complied with by the parties, and if the jury shall believe, from the evidence, that the deceased and the plaintiff made a present agreement, by which the deceased, then and there, took the plaintiff to be his wife, and the plaintiff, then and there, took the deceased as her husband, and they mutually agreed to live together then and thereafter as husband and wife, and if they shall further believe, from the evidence, that plaintiff and deceased, from the time of such agreement up to the death of McGuire, continued to cohabit as man and wife, then there was a valid and binding marriage between the said plaintiff and the said McGuire. That, in order to prove a marriage between the plaintiff and the deceased, it is not necessary that record evidence should be adduced, nor that the marriage should be proved by witnesses present when the marriage contract was made, nor that any religious ceremony should have been performed, but the marriage may be proved by the declarations and conduct of the parties, and by other circumstances which usually accompany the marriage relation, and by reputation; and if the jury shall believe, from the evidence in this case, that the deceased and the plaintiff cohabited together as husband and wife, and that the deceased spoke of the plaintiff in the presence of his family and others as his wife, and she in his presence and in the presence of others, spoke of him as her husband, and deceased made no objection to being so addressed, and that the plaintiff, with the knowledge and assent of de-ceased, united with him in signing deeds and other instruments as his wife, that plaintiff and deceased appeared in respectable society as man and wife, and were so addressed by others without objection on their part, and if their child was addressed and treated by them, in the presence of each other, as the child of both of them, bom in lawful wedlock, and if the plaintiff, with the knowledge of deceased, generally assumed his name, all such facts are competent evidence upon the question of marriage, and should be considered by the jury in arriving at their verdict.