Legal Definitions - Enoch Arden law

Enoch Arden law is a legal statute that allows a person to obtain a divorce or be exempted from liability if their spouse has been absent without explanation for a certain number of years, usually five or seven. This law is named after a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, where the main character, Enoch Arden, is shipwrecked on a desert island for years and returns home to find that his wife has remarried. He keeps his identity a secret so that she can stay with her new husband.

For example, if a person's spouse disappears without any explanation and is not heard from for seven years, the other person can use the Enoch Arden law to obtain a divorce or remarry without being held liable for bigamy.

The Enoch Arden law is also known as the Presumptive Death law, which assumes that the missing spouse is dead after a certain period of time. This law is useful in cases where a person wants to move on with their life but cannot do so because their spouse is missing.