AURORA A. ANAYA vs FERNANDO O.

PALAROAN
FACTS:
1. Aurora and defendant Fernando were married on 4 December 1953.
2. Fernando filed an action for annulment of the marriage on 7 January 1954 on the ground that his consent
was obtained through force and intimidation.
3. Judgment was rendered therein on 23 September 1959 dismissing the complaint of Fernando, upholding
the validity of the marriage and granting Aurora's counterclaim.
4. AURORA: Fernando had divulged to Aurora that several months prior to their marriage he had premarital relationship with a close relative of his and that "the non-divulgement to her of the aforementioned
pre-marital secret on the part of defendant that definitely wrecked their marriage, which apparently
doomed to fail even before it had hardly commenced.
He paid court to her, and pretended to shower her with love and affection not because he really
felt so but because she merely happened to be the first girl available to marry so he could evade
marrying the close relative of his immediate members of her family were threatening him to force him to
marry her.
He secretly intended from the very beginning not to perform the marital duties and obligations
appurtenant thereto, and furthermore, he covertly made up his mind not to live with her.
ISSUE: W/N the non-divulgement" of the pre-marital relationship of her husband and the intention from the
very beginning not to perform the marital duties and obligations constitutes fraud? Non-divulgement: NO;
Intention to perform marital obli: YES; but barred by PRESCRIPTION
HELD:
ART 85. A marriage may be annulled for any of the following causes, existing at the time of the
marriage:
(4) That the consent of either party was obtained by fraud, unless such party afterwards,
with full knowledge of the facts constituting the fraud, freely cohabited with the other as her
husband or his wife, as the case may be;
This fraud, as vice of consent, is limited exclusively by law to those kinds or species of fraud
enumerated in Article 86, as follows:
ART. 86. Any of the following circumstances shall constitute fraud referred to in number 4 of the
preceding article:
Misrepresentation as to the identity of one of the contracting parties;
Non-disclosure of the previous conviction of the other party of a crime involving moral
turpitude, and the penalty imposed was imprisonment for two years or more;

Concealment by the wife of the fact that at the time of the marriage, she was pregnant
by a man other than her husband.

Non-disclosure of a husband's pre-marital relationship with another woman is not one of the enumerated
circumstances of fraud that would constitute a ground for annulment.

While a woman may detest such non-disclosure of premarital lewdness or feel having been thereby cheated
into giving her consent to the marriage, nevertheless the law does not assuage her grief after her consent
was solemnly given, for upon marriage she entered into an institution in which society, and not herself alone,
is interested.

Anaya emphasizes that not only has she alleged "non-divulgement" of the pre-marital relationship of her
husband with another woman as her cause of action, but that she likewise alleged in her reply that defendant
Fernando paid court to her without any intention of complying with his marital duties and obligations and
covertly made up his mind not to live with her. (DIFFERENT CAUSE OF ACTION)

It is enough to point out that any secret intention on the husband's part not to perform his marital duties must
have been discovered by the wife soon after the marriage: Since appellant's wedding was celebrated in
December of 1953, and this ground was only pleaded in 1966, it must be declared already barred.