The Delpit marriage case, sometimes known as the Delpit affair (French: l'affaire Delpit), was a controversy concerning marriage and religion in Quebec at the turn of the 20th century.
On 2 May 1893, Édouard Delpit, aged 23, married Marie Berthe Aurore Jeanne Côté, aged 16 and 2 months, in Montreal. At birth, both Delpit and Côté were Catholic. They later abandoned the faith. They were married by Reverend William S. Barnes, a Unitarian minister.[1][2]
The marriage did not go well. Côté filed for divorce in court.[1] After Côté's filing, Delpit sought assistance from the "ecclesiastical authorities",[3] requesting a declaration that the marriage was a nullity.[2] Delpit argued that his marriage to Côté was a clandestine marriage because Delpit and Côté were Catholic but had been married by a Protestant.[3] A clandestine marriage was a marriage performed contrary to canon law.[4]
Delpit won initially. Monsignor Marois,[a] the vicar general of Quebec, declared the marriage void in canon law.[5] On 23 November 1900, an ecclesiastic judgment issued at Rome confirmed the Quebec determination, holding that the Delpit marriage was void in canon law because clandestine.[3] On 13 January 1901, Archbishop Paul Bruchési sent a pastoral letter to Quebec churches stating that civil courts had no authority to overturn ecclesiastical authorities' determination of a marriage's validity.[6] On 16 January, Delpit filed in the Quebec Superior Court to request that the judgment at Rome be given effect in Quebec.[7]
On 30 March, in a judgment cited 20 RJQ (CS) 338, Justice John Sprott Archibald[8] of the Superior Court held that ecclesiastical authorities had no power to declare a marriage void in Quebec civil law—and therefore that the marriage was valid in Quebec.[9]
Notes
^Likely Cyrille Alfred Marois. See Jesuits' Estates Act. Montreal: Witness Printing House. 1889. p. 21. OCLC1047482390.
