No marriage shall be solemnized without a license therefor. The license shall be issued by
the clerk of the county in which the female resides at the time, unless the female is
eighteen (18) years of age or over or a widow, and the license is issued on her application
in person, in which case it may be issued by any county clerk.
Effective: July 14, 2018
History: Amended 2018 Ky. Acts ch. 36, sec. 3, effective July 14, 2018. -- Amended
1984 Ky. Acts ch. 279, sec. 1, effective July 13, 1984. -- Amended 1980 Ky. Acts ch.
74, sec. 1, effective July 15, 1980. -- Amended 1978 Ky. Acts ch. 384, sec. 518,
effective June 17, 1978. -- Amended 1968 Ky. Acts ch. 100, sec. 14. -- Amended
1948 Ky. Acts ch. 42, sec. 1. -- Recodified 1942 Ky. Acts ch. 208, sec. 1, effective
October 1, 1942, from Ky. Stat. sec. 2105.
Notes of Decisions
Cited in
11
cases (
3 in the last 5 years), 2008–2025 · leading case:
Pinkhasov v. Petocz, 331 S.W.3d 285 (Ky. Ct. App. 2011).
Pinkhasov v. Petocz, 331 S.W.3d 285 (Ky. Ct. App. 2011).
· cites it 8× “The language of KRS 402.080 (no marriage to be solemnized without license) and KRS 402.”
Miller v. Davis, 123 F. Supp. 3d 924 (E.D. Ky. 2015).
· cites it 6× “1 See Ky.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 402.080. The process is quite simple.”
Miller v. Davis, 267 F. Supp. 3d 961 (E.D. Ky. 2017).
· cites it 2× “34 Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 402.080 . This duty is mandatory, not discretionary, and state statutes dictate every procedure for county clerks to follow when carrying out those laws, right down to the form they must use in issuing marriage licenses.”
Jones v. Perry, 215 F. Supp. 3d 563 (E.D. Ky. 2016).
· cites it 2× “] In fact, the seminal provision cited by Perry, KRS § 402.080, states that a marriage license *574 “shall be issued by the clerk of the county in which the female resides at the time, unless the female is eighteen (18) years of age or over or a widow, and the license is issued…”
J.N.R. v. O'Reilly, 264 S.W.3d 587 (Ky. 2008).
· cites it 2× “See KRS 402.080 to KRS 402.110. Clearly then, legal formalities are required before the Commonwealth affords a couple the status of being "united in law.”
Marshall v. Marshall, 559 S.W.3d 381 (Ky. Ct. App. 2018).
· cites it 2× “If third parties do not have standing, Decedent's Family cannot attack his marriage to Wife as invalid due to failure to follow KRS 402.080 4 -- nor as invalid due to incompetence, impairment, or fraudulent under KRS 403.”
Ermold v. Davis (E.D. Ky. 2022).
· cites it 4× “3d at 434 (citing Ky. Rev. Stat. §§ 402.080, 403.220, 402.230).”
Yates v. Davis (E.D. Ky. 2022).
· cites it 4× “3d at 434 (citing Ky. Rev. Stat. §§ 402.080, 403.220, 402.230).”
James Yates v. Kim Davis (6th Cir. 2019).
“See Ky. Rev. Stat. § 402.080. Thus, Davis did not (and could not) bar Plaintiffs from getting married in Rowan County.”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the
Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and
treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.