what is the difference of annulment from divorce??

Question

i'm confused... need it for my debate...

Answer 1

The only other thing that I know (I am not sure if this is everywhere, but I think it is) is that you can't get it annulled if you have been married for over 1 year or if the marriage involves children.

Answer 2

Annulment makes the marriage of no effect, as if it never happened. There is no division of property, etc., and things are to go back to the way they were before the marriage. This option is usually confined to situations where the marriage is fairly short in duration and not consummated (no intercourse), so that should mean (but doesn't always) mean no children.

This option is much more common in times and places where the Catholic Church is in authority, because the church does not recognize marriages after divorce. Therefore, the only way to remarry under traditional Catholocism and have the church perform and bless the union is to have the 1st marriage annulled. This was a HUGE deal back in the days of King Henry VIII, and was one of the big factors that led to the Church of England (now Anglican in UK, Episcopalian in US) breaking away from the Catholic church.

It is not as common today, now that divorce is more common & less stigmatized, but you may still see it in cases such as an impromptu "Vegas wedding gone awry".

Here is more info I found on the web at the link I cited below:

Again, most people don't know the difference between a Divorce and an Annulment. A Declaration or Decree of Divorce recogises that there was a valid marriage which has now been dissolved. An Annulment is a Declaration or Decree that the marriage was NOT a valid marriage in the first place. In order to obtain the latter, you normally have to show that there was either fraud, undue duress or an absence of consent. For example, if you were "off your face" drunk when you got married, then this would amount to a lack of consent. Another example would be where you got married because you were threatened with something if you didn't. However, if you married someone so one of you could get a Green Card, this does not go to a lack of consent, fraud or duress. Consequently, annulments are nowhere near as common as divorces, because the legal criteria is much more rigid.

There was a news article about a London heiress who, after 17 years of marriage, discovered that her husband was actually a woman. Her transsexual spouse concealed his true gender from her for 17 years, using a home-made part of the anatomy for sex. While many people would find it surprising that in 17 years of marriage, the wife did not realize she was living with a woman, the court still nullified the marriage. It was, in effect a form of fraud.

Answer 3

an annulment is like voiding out the marriage, saying it never happened and you didn't complete all the requirements to make the marriage legal and binding...in most cases you only have so many days/hours to apply and your not suppose to have consummated you marriage ( although i don't think they look at that much any more since most people have sex way before marriage) also if you were under any kind of influence when you got married and did not make a rational decision....

Divorce is saying you were married but for what ever reason it is not working and you are legally separating from that person...much much more complicated cause you have to do the splitting of assets, which you don't have to worry about with an annulment since there was never any merging of assets.

Answer 4

As a student, what you are doing is called cheating. Since you have time on your hands and a computer, I suggest you get your fingers working and do some research on the net because the answers that you received were not correct!

Answer 5

The first two answers are right, I can't add to this.