One of the most essential issues that prospective spouses must adequately consider prior to marriage is the health status of the other party. In jurisprudential and legal discussions, annulment of marriage has traditionally been examined mainly with respect to defects existing in either spouse at the time of concluding the marriage contract. However, with advances in medical science and the emergence of new diseases, the law has not always been able to respond effectively to contemporary medical concerns and, except for specific enumerated defects, remains silent or ambiguous.



This study seeks to determine whether the marriage contract is fundamentally premised on the health of the spouses or whether their health must be expressly stipulated as a condition within the contract. The importance of this question lies in the fact that, if marriage is presumed to be based on the health of both parties, silence regarding health implies its existence both legally and customarily. Conversely, if health requires explicit stipulation, the presence or absence of relevant diseases must be conditioned within the marriage contract.



In analyzing this issue, attention is given to newly identified diseases that are not listed among the defects giving rise to annulment, while clarifying the position of health in the marriage contract and establishing criteria for diseases that significantly affect marital life. The findings demonstrate that accepting the presumption of health allows recourse to annulment under Article 1128 of the Civil Code. Otherwise, annulment is available only in cases of breach of an expressly stipulated condition, and in the absence of such stipulations, judicial divorce remains the primary legal remedy.