Needing a bit of legal advice for a story

[MSTarot]

A while back I read a story that I really want to find again. I tried the search, but didn't find it. So knowing it's an incest story I started reading the 'A's and went story by story.

About half way through the 'A's I realized just how ludicrous that was.

I wont call it a wasted effort though as I got to read a lot of stories, some good, some bad. I even found a few story ideas that I had never thought about.

There was a story that had a great plot line, but the writer didn't do anything with it. Hell what he wrote couldn't even be called a good stroke story. But the idea!

Guy and girl meet in their last year of high school. Things are getting hot and heavy after a few dates, they decide to each lose their virginity with the other on the night of the senior prom.

About a month before the Prom their single parents are put together by an online dating service. Their perfectly compatible and they rush through several dates, a frantically short courtship, and are married by the justice of the peace.

Now suddenly boyfriend and girl friend are step brother and step sister. Their parents, completely caught up in their own new relationship, basically ignore their children's feeling. They tell them it was just a silly high school relationship not true love like what they have.

That may have been true, but 'They' turned the feeling the kids had into forbidden fruit.

For a bit the kids try to give it a go, but each is jealous of the others new dates for the prom. They start to fight like cats and dog with each other and then they turn on their parents because it's all their fault.

Finally the night of the prom they basically tell their family to go fuck themselves and run off together to start their own lives, together as husband and wife.

Now I have been sent an e-mail already and chastised over the legal aspect of one of my stories. What I kind of need to know is what would be the legal problems they would have to face.

Their parents are married. They are both over eighteen now so they are legal adults, but being step brother and sister can they marry? Are they guilty of incest in the breaking the law since of the word?

Set in the US as far as the legal system goes. Not sure of the state I want them to be in.

Has anyone ever heard of something like this happening in the real world? how did that turn out?

Thank you for any help I can get.

M.S.Tarot

 

[nakdsub]

The answer is no...

There is nothing legally to prevent them from getting married. You don't say who belongs to whom, if the girl is the daughter of the wife or the boy is, but whoever it is, unless the husband adopted the other child, that child would have a different last name. So, there is no DNA common nor are their last names even the same. There would be nothing to indicate any problems when applying for a marriage certificate.

 

[nakdsub]

My problem with the story is...

The coincidence of the parents meeting on line. It would play much more realistically to have them meet at a school function, or maybe even, through the kids. Maybe the dad's old fashion and wants to meet the other parents before his daughter goes out with their son.

 

[RicoLouis]

Depends on where they live at, most of the bible belt states marrage laws or based on the bibles section on who can and can't get married so step bro/sis can't be married but these laws generally only apply to long term step siblings.

 

[Armphid]

Depends on where they live at, most of the bible belt states marrage laws or based on the bibles section on who can and can't get married so step bro/sis can't be married but these laws generally only apply to long term step siblings.

This could make for an interesting complication later, perhaps. Maybe they and their parents originally lived in a state with the kind of legal set-up Rico mentions above but when they run off, they go to a state that doesn't dig that further into it.

So they're married but when they go home to confront their parents, does their marriage count there? Will the parents try and get them arrested? It could be an interesting plot point.

I'm also curious, RicoLouis, do you know if the states above ask questions about it on the marriage application (i.e. information is volunteered) or do they actually do a investigation of the familial backgrounds of everyone who gets married to check for that kind of thing?

If it's volunteered information, another twist could be if they lie on the marriage application and then get found out later down the line or their parents/someone opposed to them threatens to reveal their secret.

 

[MSTarot]

Mine in real life is from the state of Alabama. All we had to do was walk in and show our driver's license to prove we were from the state.

My original idea was the son was from the father, and the daughter the mom. I was wanting to add a somewhat violent confrontation between the two. Bit of push me, shove you, kind of thing. Figured that would play better from a son and dad point of view than son and new step father.

Then again.

"Now wait a minute! Don't you talk to your mother like that!"
When I felt his hand on my arm it all came to a head. With a pounding rush of hate in my ears I grabbed his shirt, turning us both I slammed him into the wall!
"You are not my father! Don't you ever lay a fucking hand on me again. To me your nothing more than a man fucking my mom! I swear you ever even think about grabbing me again and you wont even be able to do that."
Tom pushes me from him and I feel my mom get knocked back a bit as I crash into her.

Will have to give it a few thoughts.

Thanks fro the help.
M.S.Tarot

 

[nakdsub]

Yeah, I really don't know of any states...

That have a law against non-related people getting married. Even if they've lived under the same roof for years.

 

[RicoLouis]

http://statelaws.findlaw.com/state-codes/

this might help but not sure, hard subject to find info online about. Everytime I looked I kept getting legal status of first cousin marriage which ironically is legal in the bible belt. Because it isn't spefiacly covered in the bible.

 

[Carnevil9]

I'm not sure what you are hoping for here. Do you WANT it to be illegal, so that your characters can be criminals and the parents can have a logical reason to be upset? Or do you want it NOT to be illegal, so you won't get any angry emails?

I'm pretty sure that it is legal everywhere for step-siblings to marry, because there is zero blood connection. But you could make the parents very religious (or just very silly or maybe superstitious) so that they can still oppose the marriage.

 

[MSTarot]

I'm not sure what you are hoping for here. Do you WANT it to be illegal, so that your characters can be criminals and the parents can have a logical reason to be upset? Or do you want it NOT to be illegal, so you won't get any angry emails?.

Can't really say i care either way. i can swing the story for either outcome, but what i was looking for was what the law says.

Like Rico said when you try to look it up all you can seem to find is about first cousins.

As far as angry emails go, well they just give me more to write about. i'm going to use what he wrote to me in the next part of the story.

 

[snoopercharmbrights]

In any jurisdiction where it is illegal for step-siblings to marry, what happens if the young couple meet (e.g. at college) and each has lost one parent (dead, divorced, whatever). If the young couple then marry and the respective parents meet at the wedding, does that make it illegal for their parents to marry subsequently?

If so that is a truly Dickensian law, as “If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble,… “the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.” (Oliver Twist)


Silly aside: "Please may I have next Tuesday off? My mum's getting married."

 

[soflabbwlvr]

Laws banning marriage between relatives are defined by degrees of consanguinity, or relationship by blood. Step siblings (as opposed to half-siblings sharing a single parent), are not related by blood, and therefore there is no legal barrier to them marrying one another.