Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Verdict

Publication Date

6-19-2014

Abstract

Sometimes it’s all about the way you ask a question. Could the answer be anything but “no” when the court says the question posed by a marriage validity case is:

Whether the Legislature, when it enacted [New York’s marriage license statute] more than one hundred years ago, could have ever conceived of, let alone intended for, the statute being used to validate a license-less marriage supposedly solemnized in what can only be described as a ‘pseudo- Jewish’ wedding ceremony conducted at a Mexican beach resort by a New York dentist who became a Universal Life Church minister on the internet solely for the purpose of performing weddings for friends and relatives?

In Ponorovskaya v. Stecklow, a New York judge struck another blow for the make-your-own weddings that have become so popular. But this case involves a number of family law issues, woven together in law-school-hypothetical fashion.

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