Marriage within Prohibited Degrees, How Punished (1924)

§ 4540. Marriage within prohibited degrees, how punished; residents, within prohibited degrees, and white person and colored person, going out of State to be married and afterwards returning, how punished; cohabitation, evidence of marriage.—If any person marry in violation of section five thousand and eighty-four or five thousand and eighty-five, he shall be confined in jail not exceeding six months, or fined not exceeding five hundred dollars, in the discretion of the jury. And if any person, resident in this State, and within the degrees of relationship mentioned in those sections, or any white person and colored person, shall go out of this State for the purpose of being married, and with the intention of returning, and be married out of it, and afterwards return to and reside in it, cohabiting as man and wife, they shall be as guilty, and be punished, as if the marriage had been in this State. The fact of their cohabitation here as man and wife shall be evidence of their marriage. (Code 1897, § 3783.)