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• What kind of marriages are exempted from marriage license?

1. In case either or both of the contracting parties are at the point of death, the marriage may be solemnized without necessity of a marriage license and shall remain valid even if the ailing party subsequently survives.
2. If the residence of either party is so located that there is no means of transportation to enable such party to appear personally before the local civil registrar, the marriage may be solemnized without necessity of a marriage license.
3. A marriage in articulo mortis as defined in the Family Code. 
4. Marriages among Muslims or among members of the ethnic cultural communities may be performed validly without the necessity of marriage license, provided they are solemnized in accordance with their customs, rites or practices.
5. No license shall be necessary for the marriage of a man and a woman who have lived together as husband and wife for at least five years and without any legal impediment to marry each other. The contracting parties shall state the foregoing facts in an affidavit before any person authorized by law to administer oaths. The solemnizing officer shall also state under oath that he ascertained the qualifications of the contracting parties are found no legal impediment to the marriage. 

• Which marriages does the law consider void from the beginning?

(1) Those contracted by any party below eighteen years of age even with the consent of parents or guardians; 
(2) Those solemnized by any person not legally authorized to perform marriages unless such marriages were contracted with either or both parties believing in good faith that the solemnizing officer had the legal authority to do so; 
(3) Those solemnized without license, except those covered the preceding Chapter; 
(4) Those bigamous or polygamous marriages not failing under Article 41; 
(5) Those contracted through mistake of one contracting party as to the identity of the other; and 
(6) Those subsequent marriages that are void under Article 53. 
(7) A marriage contracted by any party who, at the time of the celebration, was psychologically incapacitated to comply with the essential marital obligations of marriage, shall likewise be void even if such incapacity becomes manifest only after its solemnization. 
(8) Between ascendants and descendants of any degree; and 
(9) Between brothers and sisters, whether of the full or half blood. 
(10) Between collateral blood relatives whether legitimate or illegitimate, up to the fourth civil degree; 
(11) Between step-parents and step-children; 
(12) Between parents-in-law and children-in-law;
(13) Between the adopting parent and the adopted child; 
(14) Between the surviving spouse of the adopting parent and the adopted child; 
(15) Between the surviving spouse of the adopted child and the adopter; 
(16) Between an adopted child and a legitimate child of the adopter; 
(17) Between adopted children of the same adopter; and 
(18) Between parties where one, with the intention to marry the other, killed that other person's spouse, or his or her own spouse.

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