Presumed dead after 7 years, remarriage, children etc - then they return. What happens?

[HmmmCat]

I’ve been reading Far From the Madding Crowd, and it made me wonder…

Say a person disappears and is legally presumed dead, their spouse remarries, has more children and the new spouse adopts the previous children. Then the presumed dead spouse returns. What happens?

Is the new marriage annulled? In which case is the new child legally the child of the original spouse (if it was the husband who disappeared)? What about the previous children, is their adoption annulled?

And what about their estate? If it has been distributed among their heirs, can they claim it back again? What if it’s been spent?

Also part of the plot of the TV series Mistresses - one of the main characters was a 9/11 widow then her husband turned up again with a new woman and child just after the original woman got a £1m payout.

Beat me to it.

If this was happening in real life not a novel: the 2nd marriage would be valid. It would only take place after a legal process to confirm that the presumption of death is reasonable given all evidence, and the court would grant an order declaring that the "till death us do part" clause of the 1st marriage contract has been triggered and that marriage is legally disolved. The widow is entirely free to marry again and if she chose to stay single and he returned, they would nevertheless no longer be married and would have to remarry if they wanted to be legally wed again. All his estate would be legally the property of whoever inherited it - his Will (or intestacy distribution if no Will) would have been executed and the heirs would have no legal obligation to hand it back.

How people treat him would depend on whether it was deliberate. If you choose consciously to abandon your entire life and stay away making no attempt at contact then it's quite right that you should lose everything. If you were kidnapped and held against your will for a decade with no means of communication then people might be a littie more sympathetic and perhaps return enough of their inheritance to allow you to re-establish yourself and recover from that traumatic ordeal.

Yes, happened in my family. My great aunt was told her husband was missing in action, presumed dead, leaving her with a young family. Her husband walked through the door nearly four years later.
He had been a prisoner of war after his plane was shot down.

I can’t imagine the sadness at him being MIA and the utter confusion when he arrived home.

Is that now or in the nineteenth century, though?

I was talking about now.

But if FFTMC happened now Troy would have stayed with his first love in the first place as the whole silly mess with Fanny going to the wrong church wouldn't have happened.

I haven't read the book, just the plot summary on Wikipedia, but it's not clear to me why B reckons she's free to marry G given that her 2nd husband is still alive, albeit in jail.

It’s fascinating. Locally we had a man suddenly walk out on his family and just disappeared. Presumed not dead. No one has heard anything since.

I used to work in the legal profession and I should have made clear, I was referring to the Scottish system.

Also formed part of the plot of "Mad Men".

Wasn't there a canoe guy who tried to fake his won death ?

As a teenager doing a Saturday job one of my colleagues was in the situation where her husband had just walked out one day and never been seen since. It had been five or six years and I think she was waiting for the seven years to pass. It was before the internet so obviously a lot easier to disappear back then.

I moved on from that job but occasionally went back to help out at events. I went back a few years later and, lo and behold, he had turned up and expected to resume the marriage! Presumably his life with another woman had lost its shine…I’m not sure what happened but I got the impression that she was considering taking him back again.

I think it was rare, but not unheard of, for unreliable men (in particular) to do this in the twentieth century. There was even a running comedian-style joke about their father having popped out for a packet of cigarettes, in 1972…but these situations resulted in a lot of heartache or had real tragedy lying underneath.

Didn't he get shot? I may be misremembering.

No. Boldwood shot Troy. I presume he would have been hanged for murder. In any case that marriage would gave been bigamous if 7 years hadn't passed. I can't remember this detail.

In the Mayor of Casterbridge a man sold his wife and she married someone else. Different times.

In the Mayor of Casterbridge a man sold his wife and she married someone else. Different times.
I think it would have been outrageous for the time as well! Such is fiction 😀

Yes I was being a bit facetious 🤣.

No spoilers, please!!!!

I only read that part this morning.

So far, Boldwood has not married Bathsheba. He has forced her to accept being engaged to him, to marry him once the 7y are up.

Please, please, no spoilers for Far From the Madding Crowd!

Sorry. I can't remember precise details anyway.

That actually happened. Well not exactly. Some people did just go missing and there is no way to know how many did.

Strangely my mother said a couple of days after 9/11 she wondered if anyone had just decided to walk out on their life.

Strangely my mother said a couple of days after 9/11 she wondered if anyone had just decided to walk out on their life.

"As of September 2025, approximately 1,100 victims of the 2,753 people killed in the World Trade Center attacks have no identified remains, representing
about 40% of the total."

(trigger warning)

Obviously this would include those who were totally obliterated in the disaster.

(end trigger warning)

There are no verified reports of people having used 9/11 to 'disappear'. But then again, there wouldn't be would there?