Annulment is the legal declaration of the nullity of a marriage on grounds that differ across different states. Some of these grounds are the use of deception, consent under duress, polygamy, marriage of persons below a particular age, incest, or lack of capacity to give consent by one of the parties.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 45 reporting states and the District of Columbia recorded 662,950 divorces and annulments in 2024. These numbers reflect both divorce and annulment, making it impossible to know the number of annulments separately.

Annulment lawyer Harold William Edgar lists several scenarios in which this resolution is preferable for the parties involved, including bigamy, fraud, illegal or religious reasons, coercion, or inability to consent.

Because annulments require specific legal grounds, knowing the state’s rules matters. Let’s take a closer look.

Annulment Is Not a Faster Divorce

A divorce ends a valid marriage going forward. An annulment says the marriage had a legal flaw from the start. That’s why short duration alone doesn’t qualify. 

A marriage that lasted three weeks and simply didn’t work out ends in divorce, while a marriage of many years can still be annulled if the right defect existed when the couple said their vows.

Courts sort those defects into two groups. Void marriages are invalid from the beginning, whether or not anyone goes to court. Voidable marriages stand until one spouse asks a court to undo them, and they can become fully valid if nobody acts.

Void and Voidable Grounds

Void marriages usually involve impediments the law treats as absolute. 

One such list is maintained by the Arizona Legal Center, a resource for public legal information, which includes incestual marriage and bigamous marriage in its list of causes of annulments in Arizona, which also includes marriage under age, misrepresentation, mental incapacity, and force.

Annulment in California is governed by statewide laws that distinguish it from a divorce, and these laws apply to Riverside, Orange County, Murrieta, Palm Desert, and Coachella Valley as well.

California’s Voidable Grounds

California spells out its voidable grounds in a single statute. 

In accordance with Family Code section 2210, a marriage is considered voidable where one or both spouses were minors under 18 years old at the time of marriage, a former spouse of one party had been absent for five years and was not known to be living or was believed to be dead. One or both spouses suffered from an unsoundness of mind, consent was obtained by fraud or force, or one or both parties were unable to consummate the marriage, and the incapacity appears to be incurable. 

Several of the aforementioned factors have a limitation period built into the law. As per the statute, a marriage rendered voidable because of unsound mind, fraud, or duress will not be considered voidable if a party to such marriage lived with the other spouse after obtaining full knowledge thereof.

Arizona Takes a Shorter Route

Arizona makes a useful contrast. Arizona Revised Statutes section 25-301 gives superior courts the power to dissolve a marriage and to adjudicate a marriage null and void when the alleged cause constitutes an impediment rendering the marriage void. The statute itself doesn’t list the impediments. 

This information is obtained through other areas of the state laws and case histories, which is why the annulments filed in Arizona are usually based on a few defects recognized under the law.

A law firm in Mesa at  https://ellsworthfamilylaw.com/ handles family matters across the state. With the help of a legal professional by your side, you can be provided with personalized legal care for your family’s unique situation.

Fraud Gets Misunderstood Most Often

Fraud is the ground that individuals cite first and which also causes disappointment the most. Deception concerning income, debts, or overstatements about one’s occupation does not constitute adequate grounds for annulment because the courts demand deception that cuts to the essence of the marriage itself and undermines the very purpose of entering into the marriage.

Another issue that makes things complicated is religious annulments. An annulment from the church does not affect the status of the individuals in any way legally. It is only the civil court that can accomplish this.

An annulment process is quite strict, and the procedures are different depending on which state you are in. Individuals who are thinking about getting an annulment usually begin by determining the circumstances at the time of the wedding.

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