---
title: O.C.G.A. § 19-3-48. Penalty for officiating at illegal marriage ceremony.
collection: code
id: 19-3-48
cite_as: O.C.G.A. § 19-3-48 (2025)
canonical_url: https://georgiacommons.org/code/19-3-48
md_url: https://georgiacommons.org/code/19-3-48.md
text_url: https://georgiacommons.org/code/19-3-48/text
source_url: https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/document/docs/default-source/joint-features-document-library/t18-t19-(v16)-2022-pdf.pdf?sfvrsn=b0848ebd_0#page=353
date: 2025
status: active
corpus_version: 2025-supplement-89aa39ab3c68
license: CC0-1.0
publisher: Georgia Commons, an independent project of Georgia Civic Data. Not the State of Georgia. Not legal advice.
up: https://georgiacommons.org/code/19-3.md
previous: https://georgiacommons.org/code/19-3-47.md
next: https://georgiacommons.org/code/19-3-49.md
index: https://georgiacommons.org/code/index.md
version: the only printed version
in_force: true
current_through: Including Acts of the 2025 Regular Session of the General Assembly
heading_path: DOMESTIC RELATIONS / MARRIAGE GENERALLY / LICENSE AND CEREMONY
---

# O.C.G.A. § 19-3-48. Penalty for officiating at illegal marriage ceremony.

If the Governor or any former Governor of this state, any judge, city recorder, magistrate, minister, or other person authorized to perform the marriage ceremony joins together in matrimony any man and woman without a license or the publication of banns or if the person performing the marriage ceremony knows of any disability of either of the parties which would render a contract of marriage improper and illegal, that person shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

## History

Cobb’s 1851 Digest, pp. 818, 819; Code 1863, § 4441; Code 1868, § 4482; Code 1873, § 4566; Code 1882, § 4566; Penal Code 1895, § 637; Penal Code 1910, § 677; Code 1933, § 53-9901; Ga. L. 1982, p. 3, § 19; Ga. L. 1983, p. 884, § 4-1; Ga. L. 2010, p. 394, § 5/SB 238.

## Law Reviews

For comment, “By the Power Vested in Me? Licensing Religious Officials to Solemnize Marriage in the Age of Same-Sex Marriage,” see 63 Emory L.J. 979 (2014).