23 Pa.C.S. § 1702

This is the official text of 23 Pa.C.S. § 1702, part of Pennsylvania’s Pa.C.S — part of the compiled statutory law of Pennsylvania, published by the state as "Pa.C.S." Browse the sections below, each linked to its official government source.

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Marriage during existence of former marriage.

Official statutory text

(a) General rule.--If a married person, during the lifetime of the other person with whom the marriage is in force, enters into a subsequent marriage pursuant to the requirements of this part and the parties to the marriage live together thereafter as husband and wife, and the subsequent marriage was entered into by one or both of the parties in good faith in the full belief that the former spouse was dead or that the former marriage has been annulled or terminated by a divorce, or without knowledge of the former marriage, they shall, after the impediment to their marriage has been removed by the death of the other party to the former marriage or by annulment or divorce, if they continue to live together as husband and wife in good faith on the part of one of them, be held to have been legally married from and immediately after the date of death or the date of the decree of annulment or divorce.

(b) False rumor of death of spouse.--Where a remarriage has occurred upon false rumor of the death of a former spouse in appearance well-founded but there has been no decree of presumed death, the remarriage shall be void and subject to annulment by either party to the remarriage as provided by section 3304 (relating to grounds for annulment of void marriages), and the returning spouse shall have cause for divorce as provided in section 3301 (relating to grounds for divorce).

(c) Criminal penalties.--Where the remarriage was entered into in good faith, neither party to the remarriage shall be subject to criminal prosecution for bigamy.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.