All marriages between parents and children, including grandparents and grandchildren of every degree, between brothers and sisters of the half as well as the whole blood, between uncles and nieces, aunts and nephews, first cousins, and between persons who lack capacity to enter into a marriage contract, are presumptively void; and it shall be unlawful for any city, county or state official having authority to issue marriage licenses to issue such marriage licenses to the persons heretofore designated, and any such official who shall issue such licenses to the persons aforesaid knowing such persons to be within the prohibition of this section shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor; and this prohibition shall apply to persons born out of lawful wedlock as well as those in lawful wedlock. It shall be presumed that marriages between persons who lack capacity to enter into a marriage contract are prohibited unless the court having jurisdiction over such persons approves the marriage.
Mo. Rev. Stat. § 451.020
Certain marriages prohibited — official issuing licenses to certain persons..
Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1967)
Most recently applied in Commonwealth v. Rahim (March 2004)
Effective: 28 Aug 1983; (RSMo 1939 § 3361, A.L. 1961 p. 343, A.L. 1969 H.B. 564, A.L. 1983 S.B. 44 & 45); Prior revisions: 1929 § 2974; 1919 § 7299; 1909 § 8280
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Reproduced from public-domain Missouri statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.