O.C.G.A. § 19-3-48 (2019)
Penalty for officiating at illegal marriage ceremony
If the Governor or any former Governor of this state, any judge, city recorder, magistrate, minister, or other person authorized to perform the marriage ceremony joins together in matrimony any man and woman without a license or the publication of banns or if the person performing the marriage ceremony knows of any disability of either of the parties which would render a contract of marriage improper and illegal, that person shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
History
Cobb’s 1851 Digest, pp. 818, 819; Code 1863, § 4441; Code 1868, § 4482; Code 1873, § 4566; Code 1882, § 4566; Penal Code 1895, § 637; Penal Code 1910, § 677; Code 1933, § 53-9901; Ga. L. 1982, p. 3, § 19; Ga. L. 1983, p. 884, § 4-1; Ga. L. 2010, p. 394, § 5/SB 238.
Annotations
Law reviews. For comment, “By the Power Vested in Me? Licensing Religious Officials to Solemnize Marriage in the Age of Same-Sex Marriage,” see 63 Emory L.J. 979 (2014).
JUDICIAL DECISIONS Officiant’s knowledge as to foreign residence did not violate section. - Fact that the license was issued by the ordinary (now probate judge) of a county in which the female did not reside would not in itself render the marriage illegal,
and therefore the knowledge of this fact by the marrying official would not constitute a violation of law. Minshew v. State, 25 Ga. App. 240, 102 S.E. 906, 1920 Ga. App. LEXIS 708 (1920).
RESEARCH REFERENCES C.J.S. 55 C.J.S., Marriage, § 30.