B.J.M. v C.M. (Nullity)
| Jurisdiction | Ireland |
| Judgment Date | 31 July 1996 |
| Date | 31 July 1996 |
| Docket Number | [1991 No. 43M] |
| Court | High Court |
High Court
Family law - Marriage - Nullity - Concealment before marriage of physical disfigurement - Psychological revulsion - Whether petitioner entitled to decree of nullity on basis of inability to enter into and sustain normal marital relations - Whether full and free consent - Whether consent apparent rather than real.
Petition.
The facts have been summarised in the headnote and are fully set out in the judgment of Flood J., infra.
By petition dated the 30th July, 1991, the petitioner sought an order of nullity of his marriage to the respondent. On the 29th March, 1995, the Master of the High Court directed that the issues to be tried were:—
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1. Whether the respondent lacked the capacity to fulfil the fundamental terms of the marriage contract at the time of the marriage ceremony?
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2. Whether the petitioner's consent to the said marriage was apparent rather than real in that it was not a full, free and informed consent?
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3. Whether the petitioner and the respondent had the capacity to enter into and sustain a normal functional marital relationship with each other by reason of their respective states of mind, psychological conditions, physical conditions and level of emotional development prior to and at the time of the said marriage?
The petition was heard by the High Court (Flood J.) on the 5th July, 1995, and the 17th and 18th July, 1996.
The petitioner met the respondent in 1973 and their relationship developed from friendship, over the course of a year, to engagement and marriage in 1974. The respondent permitted very little intimacy during the courtship, and neither party had seen the other naked at any time before the marriage. The petitioner attributed this to the respondent's religious beliefs.
At the age of three, the respondent had been involved in a serious accident as a result of which she had received extensive burns and had been left significantly disfigured. While the petitioner had been told of the accident, the respondent had never revealed the extent of the area of burns, or that she was scarred or disfigured in any way.
When, after the marriage, the petitioner was confronted with the respondent's disfigurement for the first time, he was repelled by the respondent's physical condition. He claimed that because of his psychological revulsion and the respondent's apparent aversion to physical affection he was unable to maintain a marital relationship.
The petitioner sought a decree of nullity claiming (a) that the respondent lacked the capacity to fulfil the fundamental terms of the marriage contract at the time of the marriage ceremony, (b) that his consent to the said marriage had been apparent rather than real in that it was not a full, free and informed consent, and (c) that by reason of the respective states of mind, psychological conditions, physical conditions and level of emotional development prior to and at the time of the marriage, neither party had had the capacity to enter into and sustain a normal functional marital relationship with the other.
Held by Flood J. in granting the relief sought, 1, that marriage was a lifelong relationship based on a mixture of respect and desire and, prior to marriage, on a concept of the physical reality of an intended partner. Where such a concept proved to be wholly illusory and had no...
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F(P) v O'M(G) Otherwise F(G)
... ... 1996 7 M THE HIGH COURT Synopsis Family Nullity; informed consent; petitioner's wife engaged in affair with third party before and after marriage; ... I accept that evidence also ... 31 I was referred to the case of B.J.M. v. CM. (1996) 2IR 575 where a nullity petition was granted on the finding that a petitioner's consent ... ...
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Northern/Irish Feminist Judgments Judges' Troubles and the Gendered Politics of Identity. Edited by. Mairead Enright, Julie McCandless and Aoife O'Donoghue
...Explicit and implicit focus by the law on the maternal role is highlighted in many of these feminist judgments. Flood J in BJM v CM [1996] 2 IR 574 described the wife in the nullity case as “having reached the zenith of all womanhood” by giving birth to children in the marriage. In the femi......