Law: License = Marriage

Chicago Lawyer Newman A. Du Mont died last September, leaving an estate in excess of $100,000 to his mother, Mrs. Loretta Du Mont. His pretty widow, Jane Wilson Du Mont, 29, went into Probate Court and was declared a legal widow, entitled to one-third of the real and personal property in the estate under Illinois law. Mother Du Mont appealed, denying the validity of her son’s 1932 hasty marriage in Crown Point, Ind., part of the record of which had been lost.

Fortnight ago one of the country judges sitting in Cook County’s Circuit Court (TIME, April 26), Joseph E. Daily of Peoria, ruled that the marriage was valid in such a way as to cause many a Hoosier and Sucker (Illinoisan) couple to raise their eyebrows. Ruled he:

“This has been an interesting case, with novel problems of law presented. … I could find no exact precedent . . . but I did find an Indiana statute which reads: ‘No marriage shall be void for the lack of a license or other formality required by the law, if either of the parties thereto believed it to be a legal marriage at the time.’ My construction of that would be that if all they did was to sign an application for a license, as they both did, and one believed it a legal marriage, it is.”

If other courts construe the old Indiana law as Judge Daily did it would mean that any couple applying for a marriage license in Indiana might consider themselves married without paying a Crown Point Justice of the Peace or anyone else $5 for performing a ceremony.