If a person is married under false pretenses, is it still a valid marriage?
Question:
Does the Bible mention false marriages or are all marriages valid? This year alone, three women who escaped from Michigan prisons more than thirty years ago have been captured and returned to Michigan. One woman who has received a lot of attention moved to California, changed her name, got married, raised a family, and lived in an upper-middle-class neighborhood. Nothing has been said in the news about her husband. My question is, are they still married or is the marriage null and void?
Answer:
The Bible does not use the term "false marriage." Instead, it states that some marriages are adulterous. That is because one or both people involved in the marriage had no right to be married again. They were still bound by their prior marriage.
"For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man" (Romans 7:3-4).
I have no idea if the woman you are referring to was married before. Even though she married under a false name, it is still a marriage. The fact that her sins caught up with her and she returned to jail doesn't mean her marriage ended.
