Request By:
Ms. Doris Fugate
Deputy Clerk
Perry County Clerk's Office
Hazard, Kentucky 41701
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
On behalf of Mr. Clarence Howard, Perry County Clerk, you raise the question concerning the length of time a marriage license application filed in your office remains valid, prior to the issuance of a marriage license.
KRS 402.080(2) reads:
"(2) No county clerk shall issue a marriage license except where both persons are sixty (60) years of age or older until the application for a marriage license remains on file, open to the public, in the office of the county clerk, for three (3) days before license is issued. The three-day waiting period shall be waived if both applicants are above the age of sixty (60) years."
KRS 402.080(2) requires the application for a marriage license to remain on file, open to the public, in the office of the county clerk, for three (3) days before the license is issued. This means three working days or days during which the office is actually open to the public for business, except that the day the application is made (regardless of the precise time during the day) counts as the first of three days. Then on the third day of such waiting period after regular business hours, the clerk may issue the marriage license to the applicants. The three-day waiting period is waived if both applicants for marriage are above the age of sixty (60) years.
Thus far, we have dealt with the minimum waiting or intervening time period prior to the issuance of a marriage license. Your question is what is the maximum period of time, after the application is made in your office, allowable for the issuance of the marriage license.
Prior to the repeal of KRS 402.120 in 1982, the applicants for a marriage license were required to take a blood test for syphilis within fifteen (15) days prior to making application for such license. Such medical examination is no longer required. A sickle cell test, treated in KRS 402.320, is discretionary with the examining physician. Thus no medical examinations are made a mandatory part of the application procedure.
Once a marriage license is issued, it is valid for thirty (30) days, including the date it is issued. KRS 402.190.
CONCLUSION
In considering that the statutes contain no maximum time during which the application for a marriage license may remain on file, and considering that under KRS 402.190 a marriage license is valid for thirty (30) days, including the date of issue, it is our opinion that such license, assuming that any pertinent marriage statutes have been complied with, should be issued within a reasonable time after the three-day waiting period. It would be up to the courts to ultimately define such "reasonable time" . In the meantime, we think a "reasonable time" would be a rather short period of time. We believe the courts would probably hold that a period of thirty days after the end of the three-day waiting period is a reasonable time. Bear in mind that the thirty days validity period for a marriage license, under KRS 402.190, does not begin to run until the actual issuance of the license. The public policy expressed in KRS 402.190 is designed to prevent a marriage license remaining unused beyond a thirty-day period and becoming stale with age. A document constituting the gateway to one of life's most important choices was not intended to gather dust or become an archive in the county clerk's office. If it is to be done, let it be done quickly. While the clerk's role in issuing a license, after determining whether statutory requirements have been met, is ministerial in nature, the issuance of the license should not be dragged out beyond a reasonable time.