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Does a couple MUST get a marriage license prior to their chassuna or can they wait until sheva brachos?
If your question is if the license can make the marriage effective as of the date of the chasuna, legally per the laws of the State, the answer to that depends on the law of whichever State you are marrying in. In New York and most States, you need to get the license prior to the marriage. In New York you need to get the license at least 24 hours before the marriage. The license is then valid to get married within 60 days from when the license was issued.
If you didn’t get the State marriage license prior to the marriage ceremony, you will need to use a later date (i.e. after the license was obtained) as the official date you got married under State law.
If your question is whether your kiddushin is valid if you do not get a marriage license, it is 100% valid and you are unquestionably halachicly married even if you never get a State marriage license.
If your question is whether State law requires you to obtain a marriage license if you get married under religious law, the answer is no. You are legally entitled to get married under religious law (i.e. chupa v’kiddushin) and choose to not get a State marriage license.
Some (but not all) States will consider you legally married if you marry under religious law, and reside together with your spouse, even if you never get a State marriage license.
Joseph……….
My parents Z”L were married in NYC in 1944. They had an orthodox wedding but never got a marriage license. They filed joint income tax as husband and wife and owned joint property for the 65 years of their marriage.
After my father died, mom went to Social Security to get the widow’s benefit. She had been collecting CT teacher’s retirement on her own account since 1984 (public school teachers in CT are not covered by Social Security). At Social Security they demanded mom produce a certified copy of her marriage license in order to get the widow’s benefit.
After explaining for an hour that she and dad had a religious ceremony in NY and no marriage license, she was told that of she brought in her ketuba and if it was in both English and Hebrew it would satisfy the requirements. B”H my parents had both the hand calligraphy ketuba hanging on the dining room wall for 65 years and a small printed English Hebrew Ketubah that the hotel insisted the mesader kedushin fill out. That made it possible for mom to collect many thousands of dollars per year until she passed away.
I tell my family law clients to come in before marriage to set up trusts and/or prenuptial agreements to make sure to get, have filled out and recorded a marriage license form the state. It may be vital to your financial well being in years to come.
“If your question is whether State law requires you to obtain a marriage license if you get married under religious law, the answer is no.”
In New York it is illegal to perform any wedding without a license. You may be religiously married after a license-free chasuna but your Mesader Kedushin may be in legal trouble (misdemeanor with a $50 fine, and he loses his right to perform marriages for a while). There is also a 24 hour waiting period. Get the license. Both spouses have to be 18 in New York (16 with parental consent or 14 with parental and court consent — rarely given).
“Some (but not all) States will consider you legally married if you marry under religious law, and reside together with your spouse, even if you never get a State marriage license. “
This is correct, but New York is not one of those states. The term in secular law is “common law marriage”. New York forbade them in 1938, although if there is anyone still alive who entered a common law marriage prior to then the marriage is recognized. About a dozen states still permit them. And if you enter a common law marriage in another state and then move to New York, New York will accept it.
Charlie: An ecclesiastical marriage does not necessary equate to a legal marriage under State law. So if a rabbi or priest performs a religious marriage, they are not necessarily purporting to have conducted a legal marriage that claims the parties are married under State law. Thus, performing a spiritual marriage in no way violates any statues prohibiting the performance of a marriage outside of State sanctioning, if the minister does not claim the ceremony connotes a legal marriage under State law.
The State does not, and cannot under the Constitution, regulate or preclude a religious ceremony or deed, including religious marriages. In fact, the rabbi performing the chupa v’kedushin does not even have to be authorized by the State to perform marriages, if he chooses not to seek such recognition.
Indeed, a few years ago the Federal Court in the State of Utah overturned Utah’s law against polygamy that, on the books, prohibited citizens from marrying multiple spouses under religious law without obtaining a State marriage license. (It was widely ignored by Fundamentalist Mormons for the last 100 years it was on the books until the Utah Attorney General charged one person a few years ago for violating that law, and he successfully defended himself by bringing the Constitutional challenge in Federal court.) It was overturned as an infringement of the First Amendment.
Btw, Charlie, on your other point you are also mistaken in asserting that judicial consent is rarely given to minors under 16 years of age to marry. In 2011 alone New York judges approved the marriages of a 14-year-old, a 15-year-old, another 15-year-old and another 15-year-old. In New Jersey between 1995 and 2012 178 marriages between ages 10 and 15 were approved by judges.
I’ve heard that some rabbonim will not be mesader kiddushin without a marriage license though I’m not aware personally of anyone who had that situation.
Mazal tov!
I actually know of a case where a Kiddushin was done without a marriage license. It was a rare case where a legal marriage would have been harmful to someone (It involved government benefits to a disabled individual and had they legally married they would have lost those benefits they needed to live)
Many American Poskim, especially decades ago (R’ Henkin was the most famous of them) held it was Assur to get Halachically married without a marriage license because it is a Chillul Hashem because it looks like you are “living in sin”. Very few are Mapkid on that nowadays, though I have heard some are.
1, Each state is different.
2. In some cases, the government won’t recognize a marriage without the license. In some cases, the marriage is recognized but the clergyman is subject to a fine.
3. In some cases, the marriage is recognized with or without the license (meaning that a frum religious wedding is considered a valid civil marriage regardless of whether there is a wedding, even if the parties desire that their marriage not be recognized by the government, e.g. if they want a kosher marriage but wish to keep filing as single for tax purposes).
4. Some states have “common law marriage”, meaning any sort of public statement that you are getting married is probably recognized as creating a valid marriage.
5, It is very hard to get a marriage recognized if you don’t bother with the license, even if technically the marriage is valid. This can be a problem in one spouse wants to include the other (and the children) in health care, it affects taxes and social security, it affect custody in the event of a divorce or death. In lieu of getting a license, you might at some point need to hire a lawyer and get a court order to prove the marriage, and you might be prosecuted for tax fraud filing a joint return or lose custody of one’s children to the state. Better to get the license.
In response to: “Some (but not all) States will consider you legally married if you marry under religious law, and reside together with your spouse, even if you never get a State marriage license. It depends on whether the license is considered a mere revenue measure as opposed to being part of what renders you married.
In New York, while there is no common law marriage, if you engage in a ceremonial marriage without a license the marriage is valid, but you might have trouble proving it. However if someone marries someone else they will be subject to a bigamy prosecution and the second marriage will be void – even if they have a “get” from the first since they still need a civil divorce.
“The State does not, and cannot under the Constitution, regulate or preclude a religious ceremony or deed, including religious marriages.”
It can and it does. Back when same sex marriage was illegal it tried to prosecute ministers whose churches had no problem with same-sex marriages.
“It was overturned as an infringement of the First Amendment.”
Wrong. The final decision by the Appeals Court was on a technicality.
“It involved government benefits to a disabled individual and had they legally married they would have lost those benefits they needed to live”
Unfortunately that means that they would be defrauding the government. That is both asur and a felony under civil law.
“you are also mistaken in asserting that judicial consent is rarely given to minors under 16 years of age”
I think you just proved my point. That year there were 131,515 marriages in New York State; four of them required such judicial approval.
The State cannot regulate religious marriages, sans a state marriage license. It couldn’t before the SCOTUS enacted toeiva marriage and it certainly cannot now, based on the toeiva marriage decision and the federal court in Utah’s decision.
And Utah’s law was overturned by the federal court on the merits, NOT on a technicality.
It is 100% legal and halachic to have a chupa v’kedushin sans any state marriage license. It isn’t even questionable in the slightest.
And the point was you were wrong in asserting that judicial consent is “rarely given” to marriages for minors under 16. It happens multiple times every year, in every state that permits it. (Which is most states, including NY and NJ.) I doubt it was even requested too many more times than it was granted.
Apologies about the comment on the Utah case. I see a few months ago the appeals court went back on the three year old district court decision and rendered it moot because Utah stated they have no intentions of enforcing the unconstitutional law anyways, and that it was irrelevant in the original case since they never prosecuted the guy who challenged it with violating that law. So the court said there was no case for a decision to be rendered on.
Nevertheless, the SCOTUS’ toeiva marriage decision was even stronger in making it impossible for states to regulate religious-only marriages, something that couldn’t have been enforced even before that decision.
Joseph: The question isn’t whether the state can regulate religious marriages (i.e. require that the meseder kedushin by a rabbi ordained at an accredited institution, or require that the witnesses be of a certain gender or religion) but whether the government will recognize a religious marriage as valid – meaning that if some frum Jews have a kosher frum wedding but without a license whether or not the government will choose to recognize the marriage (meaning they are required to file a joint tax return, whether they automatically inherit from each other when one dies, whether they need a government approved divorce before marrying someone else, etc.). In states with common law marriage, clearly a religious ceremony is a valid civil marriage. In state that banned common law marriages (such as New York), the question is whether the law recognizes a ceremonial marriage even with a license (regarding the license as a tax, not a prerequisite for validity).
akuperma: I don’t disagree with you. I’m merely stating that it is 100% legal to have a Jewish religious marriage without ever bothering to obtain a state marriage license.
I got my marriage license two weeks after my chasuna by a friend in a bagel store in Miami beach
When Rav Moshe or the Satmar Rebbe or Rav Aharon Kotler were mesader kedushin, did the choson bother them afterwards to fill out the state marriage certificate? Do the gedolim today do the paperwork after they are mesader?
When Rav Moshe or the Satmar Rebbe or Rav Aharon Kotler were mesader kedushin, did the choson bother them afterwards to fill out the state marriage certificate? Do the gedolim today do the paperwork after they are mesader?
My mesader kiddushin is one of the senior rabbeim in Chaim Berlin and well-respected throughout the Yeshivish world. He filled out the paperwork for our marriage license and mailed it.
The Wolf
Does Rav Aharon Schechter do the paperwork after he’s mesader? He used to be mesader many nights each week.
Btw, what’s your shaichos to the yeshiva that the rebbi was mesader for you?
Does Rav Aharon Schechter do the paperwork after he’s mesader? He used to be mesader many nights each week.
I don’t know… and I’ll bet that you don’t either.
Btw, what’s your shaichos to the yeshiva that the rebbi was mesader for you?
The yeshiva? None. He was (and still is) a very good friend of our family.
The Wolf
Actually I do know marriages he was mesader and didn’t do the paperwork. I heard he would if you bother him but he prefers not to. (Probably the time it would involve him from so many chasunas he’s mesader.) He certainly doesn’t inquire whether the choson ever filed a marriage certificate.
Joseph: The real world situation that frequently occurs is someone has the idea of having a religious ceremony and not telling the government in the (usually mistaken) belief that the government doesn’t recognize a religious marriage absent the license. In many if not most states that is not the case. The people are married. They need a civil divorce (not just a “get”) to be divorced in the eye’s of the state. They are liable for joint debts (unlike unmarried people living together). They inherit from each other. They are required to pay taxes as a married couple. The purely religious marriage is not merely “legal” in that it is not criminal, it is usually a fully valid marriage.
We were married in my wife’s home state with a New York rabbi as mesader kiddushin. He was authorized to perform marriages in NY, but not in the state in which we were married. He performed our civil marriage a few days later when we returned to NY. His wife and son were the “eidim” on the civil marriage form. On the rare occasions when I need to put down the date on which we were legally married, I have to dig out the marriage license.
YY, when do you *ever* need to put down the date of your civil marriage?
When making Aliyah, we were asked for a copy of our marriage license, not our Kesuvah, which I thought was odd.
Ask your Mesader Kiddushin
I’ve seen two situations where, in a state like NY, that doesn’t recognize common law , someone woukd not get married civilly.
The most common reason is that the woman would lose her social security benefits upon remarriage ( if the benefits derived from prior husband )
The other scenario involves custody/financial issues in the civil divorce. The husband gives the get so he gat remarried halachacly before the civil divorce is final
akuperma:
In a state that recognizes religious marriage ceremonies as a valid marriage, even in the absence of obtaining a state marriage license, what would they consider in the scenario that lesschumras described where a couple received a Get, and became halachicly divorced, but did not yet receive a legal divorce decree from the state courts, and one of the halachicly divorced spouses remarries in a Jewish marriage ceremony prior to receiving a state divorce?
Joseph: It is 100% legal and halachic to have a chupa v’kedushin sans any state marriage license. It isn’t even questionable in the slightest.
R’ Henkin disagrees. If I recall correctly, R’ Moshe does too.
Sam: Sources?
In any event, there certainly are many gedolim who hold a state marriage license is meaningless as far as Judaism is concerned. And practice as such. (See above, where I know couples married by the Gedolei Roshei Yeshiva on the Moetzes who has no interest in what civil marriage arrangements were or were not made.)
Joseph: I think it was in HaPardes but I’m not sure. He says it’s a Chillul Hashem to get married without a marriage license.
In states (such as New York) in which the license is not defined as the marriage or a requirement (merely a revenue measure and a burucratic device) a valid halachic marriage ceremony constitute a 100% valid state civil marriage. Afterwards it is fraud if the be unmarried. if they file “single” tax returns they could go to prison.
“there certainly are many gedolim who hold a state marriage license is meaningless as far as Judaism is concerned”
Rav Henkin z’tz’l and Rav Soloveitchik z’tz’l disagreed.
“did not yet receive a legal divorce decree from the state courts, and one of the halachicly divorced spouses remarries in a Jewish marriage ceremony prior to receiving a state divorce”
The couple could be prosecuted for bigamy. I know someone this almost happened to in such a jurisdiction.
“The purely religious marriage is not merely “legal” in that it is not criminal”
In New York it actually IS a criminal act by the mesader kidushin, as I pointed out in an earlier post.
akuperma, that wasn’t the question I posed to you. Please see my above comment addressed to you. (Six comments above this.)
Charlie: Bigamy without obtaining a state marriage license is virtually never prosecuted unless there are additional serious crimes involved such as child abuse. This is clearly evidenced by the Fundamentalist Mormons in multiple states openly practicing polygamy for the last over hundred years in the U.S. The few sporadic attempts to prosecute fell apart and the attorney generals of those states today do not involve themselves indicting on the states archaic, unconstitutional and unenforceable anti-polygamy laws.
And it is absolutely legal for a mesader kedushin to not involve himself in filing a civil marriage. And very many are mesader and don’t deal with the civil marriage license or regulations. If there are any antiquated unconstitutional laws from a century ago saying otherwise, they’ve been rendered unenforceable by many court decisions since, not the least being the SCOTUS toeiva ruling.
” it is absolutely legal for a mesader kedushin to not involve himself in filing a civil marriage.”
No, it isn’t. See New York Domestic Relations Code, Article 3, Section 17.
Charlie: Try to find a single case where anyone was prosecuted on that archaic section that has long been rendered legally moot. It happens multiple times every day that mesader kedushins do not even inquire whether a marriage license was ever procured. I know some of the most prolific mesader kedushins in New York, that have for decades been conducting multiple marriages a week, who don’t ask or care about the status of any civil license.
Joseph, it was a while ago so I don’t remember the context, but I distinctly remember having to dig up our civil marriage certificate for some bureaucratic purpose.
The Satmar Rebbe in Kiryas Joel signs marriage licenses for couples he is mesader kiddushin for. In Williamsburg, the Hisachdus HaRabbonim has rabbis who sign. Since Satmar don’t see each other when they are engaged, they usually get the license during sheva brachos. I live in a small town that has a few Chassidishe bungalow colonies in the summer. Since it is easier to get a license upstate than in the city (don’t have to wait in line, and they let the bride come alone and the groom come alone) they often come to our local year-round Litvishe rov to get their license signed a few months before the wedding. I am also an ordained rabbi (was a rov in a shul out of town years ago) and registered in NYC, so I have signed over 500 marriage licenses over the past 10 years, but mostly for non-Jewish couples (I asked a dayan and he said it is OK to sign for non Jewish couples as long as not two men).
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