Marriage Annulment: Void and Voidable Marriage

Updated on March 22, 2025 09:20:38 AM

An annulment means declaring your marriage as void or null. Unlike divorce where both the partners seek to end their marriage, annulment simply declines the existence of any such marriage between the partners.

But there is much more to it than it looks. It is not like a married couple who now no longer wish to live together can claim their marriage to be void.

To understand the conditions to be met for a void marriage, you first need to understand annulment, its laws, and how they are different from a divorce. Annulment is just a declaration of a void marriage. And a void or empty marriage results in annulment.

Annulment meaning is rejecting the existence of a marriage or nullifying it. Marriage can be declared null when it has not met legal requirements at the time of marriage. Annulment of marriage means declaring a marriage that was valid till that date but now is a void marriage. It refers to declaring a voidable marriage as void. You may feel a bit confused with these two words, void and a voidable marriage.
Void marriage doesn’t need any evidence or petition to declare a marriage null. It already is an empty marriage or has not ever existed after the time of its commencement.
But in the case of Voidable marriage, either of the partners seeks the court judgment on the annulment of their marriage. To have a bit better clarity, we can understand it from the legal perspective also.

Void and Voidable Marriage

A clear difference between a void and voidable marriage is explained under Section 5 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. It basically explains the conditions of a valid marriage which also led to the origin of the concept of void and a voidable marriage. There are a total 5 clauses in that section where clause:

1. states that neither partner should have a living spouse at the time of marriage.
2. states that the party must be of sound mind and able to give his/her valid consent.
3. states that the groom must be 21 years of age and bridge to be 18 years of age at least.
4. states that the parties must not follow under the degree of prohibited relationship.
5. states that the parties are not sapindas to each other.

Now that you are aware of all 5 clauses, it will be easy to grasp the concept of void and a voidable marriage. Void marriage under Hindu Law is those that violate Clause (i), (iv), (v) of Section 5. And Voidable Marriage is those that violate (ii) of the same. We hope that would have cleared the confusion.

Now if you want to seek nullity of your marriage, then it must fall under the grounds of a voidable marriage.