What grounds can lead to a marriage being declared void?

A marriage can be declared void when there is a fundamental legal impediment to its formation. One of the clear instances of this is if either party was already married at the time they entered into the second marriage. In jurisdictions, including New York, a marriage is considered void ab initio—meaning it is invalid from the outset—if a party to the marriage has a prior undissolved marriage. This principle is based on the idea that one cannot legally marry someone else unless the previous marriage has been officially dissolved through divorce or annulment.

In contrast, disagreement between partners, financial difficulty, and infidelity, while they can certainly contribute to marital strife or even lead to divorce, do not affect the legal capacity to enter into a marriage or its validity. These issues are typically grounds for a dissolution of marriage rather than a declaration that the marriage itself was never valid. Thus, the grounds for declaring a marriage void rests primarily on legal impediments such as the existence of a prior marriage.