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General Obligations Law § 5-311 · Title 3. Certain Prohibited Contracts and Provisions of Contracts

Certain agreements between husband and wife void

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — Law content up to date as of July 24, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)

§ 5-311. Certain agreements between husband and wife void. Except as provided in section two hundred thirty-six of the domestic relations law, a husband and wife cannot contract to alter or dissolve the marriage or to relieve either of his or her liability to support the other in such a manner that he or she will become incapable of self-support and therefore is likely to become a public charge. An agreement, heretofore or hereafter made between a husband and wife, shall not be considered a contract to alter or dissolve the marriage unless it contains an express provision requiring the dissolution of the marriage or provides for the procurement of grounds of divorce.

Source of truth

Edition
Law content up to date as of July 24, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
Official file
https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/laws/GOB5-311
Text hash
sha256 678663bc2d13569bc82330882170309688be600f9feec34220c03774ea086a0a
Composed by
gen_ny_statutes.py 2026-11-10: the Senate's Open Legislation law tree (GET /api/3/laws/<ID>?full=true) read in document order; the Senate's PDF of the whole law (GET /pdf/laws/<ID>?full=true), read with PDFium, prints the same words in the same order

Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.