23 Pa.C.S.A. § 1702 relates to "marriage during existence of former marriage." The general rule states,
Pennsylvania law has two conflicting presumptions that relate directly to Section 1702. The first is that a valid first marriage continues until it is dissolved by death, divorce, or annulment. The second is that a second marriage is presumed to be valid. In 1962, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania stated that the second presumption does not automatically trump the first presumption. The thrust behind both presumptions is to place the burden of proving the invalidity of the second marriage on the party claiming invalidity and to require proof of some nature that the first marriage was not dissolved by death, divorce or annulment at the time fo the second marriage. The presumption that a first marriage has been terminated by death, divorce, or annulment is neither absolute nor inflexible, and the courts must resolve each case on the basis of its own facts and circumstances.If a married person, during the lifetime of the other person with whom the marriage is in force, enters into a subsequent marriage pursuant to the requirements of this part and the parties to the marriage live together thereafter as husband and wife, and the subsequent marriage was entered into by one or both of the parties in good faith in the full belief that the former spouse was dead or that the former marriage has been annulled or terminated by a divorce, or without knowledge of the former marriage, they shall, after the impediment to their marriage has been removed by the death of the other party to the former marriage or by annulment or divorce, if they continue to live together as husband and wife in good faith on the part of one of them, be held to have been legally married from and immediately after the date of death or the date of the decree of annulment or divorce.
The burden remains on the party and their Bucks County divorce lawyers supporting the validity of the second marriage to produce facts that will shift the burden of proof back to the party supporting the validity of the first marriage. Because Pennsylvania law is not entirely clear about which party has the burden of proving the termination of the first marriage, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has held that in the absence of an entirely mechanical rule, a trial court should weigh one presumption against the other in light of the social value of each party's conduct. In other words, Pennsylvania law has not adopted the inflexible application of the first presumption, which would require, without exception, that the termination of the first marriage be shown conclusively before the second marriage can be recognized. Instead, a trial court can consider equitable principles in balancing the conflicting presumptions.