Title 20, Domestic Relations

It shall be unlawful for any persons to contract matrimony within this State without first procuring a license as is herein provided and it shall likewise be unlawful for anyone whomsoever to perform the marriage ceremony for any such persons unless such persons shall first have …

No marriage license may be issued unless a written application has been filed with the probate judge, or in Darlington and Georgetown counties the clerk of court who issues the license, at least twenty-four hours before the issuance of the license. The application must be signed …

(A) The judge of probate or clerk of court with whom a marriage license application was filed shall issue a license upon: (1) the filing of the application required under the provisions of Section 20-1-220; (2) the lapse of at least twenty-four hours thereafter; (3) the payment o…

All authorized offices, officials, or individuals empowered to issue a marriage license shall, at the time of application, provide to applicants for marriage licenses: (1) family planning information supplied to the issuing officials by the Department of Health and Environmental …

A marriage license must not be issued when either applicant is under the age of sixteen. When either applicant is between the ages of sixteen to eighteen and that applicant resides with father, mother, other relative, or guardian, the probate judge or other officer authorized to …

The probate judge or any other officer authorized by law to issue marriage licenses shall not issue any license to any applicant under the age of eighteen years until he has filed a birth certificate, or a hospital or baptismal certificate which has been issued and dated within o…

All persons over eighteen years of age and under twenty-five years of age shall furnish documentary evidence to the probate judge or any other officer authorized under the law to issue marriage licenses which shall prove the age of the applicant to the satisfaction of such probat…

Any person furnishing the probate judge or any other officer authorized under the law to issue marriage licenses with a false affidavit shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined in the sum of one hundred dollars.

The wilful failure of any officer responsible for the issuance of marriage licenses to comply with the terms of Sections 20-1-250, 20-1-260 and 20-1-270 shall be grounds or cause for removal from office.

All persons in this State who, previous to their actual emancipation, had undertaken and agreed to occupy the relation to each other of husband and wife and were cohabiting as such or in any way recognizing the relation as still existing on March 12, 1872, whether the rites of ma…

The form of license and certificate of marriage shall be prescribed and furnished by the State Registrar and shall contain information required by the standard certificate as recommended by the national agency in charge of vital statistics, all of which are declared necessary for…

The Division of Vital Statistics of the Department of Health and Environmental Control shall, for the purpose of uniformity, print and distribute necessary forms of marriage license and certificate to be used by all probate courts of this State in the issuance of marriage license…

The officer issuing marriage license certificates shall issue them in triplicate, all of which shall be delivered to either of the contracting parties and the parties to whom they are delivered shall in turn deliver them to the minister or officer who performs the wedding ceremon…

The probate judge or clerk of court who issued any such license shall, upon the return of the two copies to him by the person who performs the wedding ceremony, record and index such certificate in a book kept for that purpose and send one copy to the Division of Vital Statistics…

The Department of Health and Environmental Control shall properly file and index every marriage license and certificate and may provide a certified copy of any license and certificate upon application of proper parties except that upon request the Department of Social Services or…

Nothing contained in this article shall render illegal any marriage contracted without the issuance of a license.

Of the fee of one dollar required under the provisions of Section 20-1-230 the probate judge shall retain twenty-five cents as his compensation and the remaining seventy-five cents shall be paid into the county treasury and go to the school fund of the county, except that: (1) in…

In addition to the marriage license fee authorized pursuant to Section 20-1-230, there is imposed an additional twenty dollar fee for each marriage license applied for. This additional fee must be remitted to the State Treasurer and credited to the Domestic Violence Fund establis…

All fines imposed and recovered for any violation of this article shall be paid to the county treasurer and credited by him to the school fund of the county in which the violation occurs.

The children of such marriages shall be deemed legitimate and when the parties shall have ceased to cohabit, in consequence of the death of the woman or from any other cause, all the children of the woman, recognized by the man to be his, shall be deemed legitimate.

The issue of all marriages contracted after the absence of a husband or wife for a period of five years, such husband or wife not being heard from or known to be living during that period of time, are legitimate and declared to be legal heirs of their parents.

The court of common pleas shall have authority to hear and determine any issue affecting the validity of a contract of marriage.

When the validity of a marriage shall be denied or doubted by either of the parties, the other may institute a suit for affirming the marriage and, upon due proof of the validity thereof, it shall be decreed to be valid and such decree shall be conclusive upon all persons concern…

If any such contract has not been consummated by the cohabitation of the parties thereto the court may declare such contract void for want of consent of either of the contracting parties or for any other cause going to show that, at the time the supposed contract was made, it was…

When a person has been married in this State or was living with his or her spouse in this State after marriage and the one has left the other and has been absent from the other for seven years, without the latter knowing or hearing anything about such absent spouse, the abandoned…

When a marriage has been contracted or solemnized in this State and an action is brought under Sections 20-1-80, 20-1-510, and 20-1-530 seeking to annul it, the plaintiff shall serve his complaint on the defendant by publication as provided in Sections 15-9-710 and 15-9-740. The …

No action shall be brought under the provisions of Section 20-1-550 against a man or woman in the military or naval service who is beyond the seas, nor until after such man or woman in the military or naval service has returned from beyond the seas for a period of three months, u…

An official record of any marriage contracted in this State prior to June 30, 1911 or of any marriage so contracted subsequent to said date when a certificate of the performance thereof has not been filed may be made and established in the manner hereinafter prescribed. The offic…

The record herein permitted, when so established, shall be accepted by all the courts in this State as conclusive evidence of the marriage and shall be of the same force and effect as the records now required by law. The judge of probate or other officer whose duty it is to recor…

If the parents of an illegitimate child subsequently marry, the child shall become legitimate as if born in lawful wedlock and, as to the child so legitimated, all limitations imposed by law upon the amount of property that may be given illegitimate children by deed, will, inheri…

Any child legitimized under the provisions of Section 20-1-60 shall take the name of his father unless the child has been previously adopted as otherwise provided by law and unless his name has been changed in the decree of adoption, in which case he shall retain the name given h…

This act may be cited as the "South Carolina Family Respect Act".

The General Assembly finds that the family is the fundamental building block of society. Within healthy families children are instilled with values essential to the vitality of our State. These values include personal responsibility, honesty, duty, commitment to others, a work et…

(A) The office of the Governor shall publish an informational pamphlet entitled "South Carolina Family Respect" consistent with the intent and provisions of this act. The office of the Governor shall distribute the pamphlet to the agencies, offices, and entities listed in subsect…

All marriages contracted while either of the parties has a former wife or husband living shall be void. But this section shall not extend to a person whose husband or wife shall be absent for the space of five years, the one not knowing the other to be living during that time, no…

When either of the contracting parties to a marriage that is void under the provisions of Section 20-1-80 entered into the marriage contract in good faith on or after April 13, 1951 and in ignorance of the incapacity of the other party, any children born of the marriage shall be …