765.23 Immaterial irregularities otherwise. No marriage hereafter contracted shall be void either by reason of the marriage license having been issued by a county clerk not having jurisdiction to issue the same; or by reason of any informality or irregularity of form in the application for the marriage license or in the marriage license itself, or the incompetency of the witnesses to such marriage; or because the marriage may have been solemnized more than 60 days after the date of the marriage license, if the marriage is in other respects lawful and is consummated with the full belief on the part of the persons so married, or either of them, that they have been lawfully joined in marriage. Where a marriage has been celebrated in one of the forms provided for in s. 765.16 (1m), and the parties thereto have immediately thereafter assumed the habit and repute of husband and
May 22, 2026, are designated by NOTES. (Published 5-22-26)
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Updated 23-24 Wis. Stats.
wife, and having continued the same uninterruptedly thereafter for the period of one year, or until the death of either of them, it shall be deemed that a marriage license has been issued as required by ss. 765.05 to 765.24 and 767.803. History: 1979 c. 32 ss. 48, 92 (2); Stats. 1979 s. 765.23; 1981 c. 20 s. 2200; 1981 c. 314 s. 146; 2005 a. 443 s. 265; 2013 a. 372; 2021 a. 84, 240.
765.24 Removal of impediments to subsequent marriage. If a person during the lifetime of a husband or wife with whom the marriage is in force, enters into a subsequent marriage contract in accordance with s. 765.16, and the parties thereto live together thereafter as husband and wife, and such subsequent marriage contract was entered into by one of the parties in good faith, in the full belief that the former husband or wife was dead, or that the former marriage had been annulled, or dissolved by a divorce, or without knowledge of such former marriage, they shall, after the impediment to their marriage has been removed by the death or divorce of the other party to such former marriage, 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 after the removal of such impediment and the issue of such subsequent marriage shall be considered as the marital issue of both parents. History: 1979 c. 32 ss. 48, 92 (2); Stats. 1979 s. 765.24; 1983 a. 447. A second marriage entered into while the plaintiff was already married will not be annulled when the plaintiff did not live with the second husband after the first husband died. Smith v. Smith, 52 Wis. 2d 262, 190 N.W.2d 174 (1971). Public policy favors upholding a marriage attacked as void by a third party as surely as it favors upholding a marriage attacked by a party to that marriage. Corning v. Carriers Insurance Co., 88 Wis. 2d 17, 276 N.W.2d 310 (Ct. App. 1979). The equitable doctrine of “clean hands” precluded the defendant from obtaining an annulment of a marriage to the plaintiff. A voidable marriage became valid upon the removal of the impediment to the marriage. Halker v. Halker, 92 Wis. 2d 645, 285 N.W.2d 745 (1979). The husband was estopped from challenging the validity of his wife’s divorce from her first husband. Schlinder v. Schlinder, 107 Wis. 2d 695, 321 N.W.2d 343 (Ct. App. 1982).