Price of Getting Married Will Soon Go Up

It may not put a dent in Orange County’s betrothal business, but come Oct. 1, getting married here will hardly be a bargain.

Starting that day, the county will begin charging $47 for a standard marriage license, an increase of $5. That will make Orange County one of California’s most expensive spots to get hitched, as most applicants here will pay $12 more than couples in Los Angeles or San Diego.

But in a county scraping for cash to support its social service programs, the higher license fees, approved unanimously by the Board of Supervisors on Wednesday, will pay for fighting the brutal side effect of marriages gone bad: domestic violence.

“No one likes to be at the top of the heap in fees,” said County Clerk Gary L. Granville. “But measured against the importance of this program, I think the board acted correctly and courageously.”

Board members approved the fee hike without dissent, agreeing with Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder that the money represented an “investment in preventing domestic violence.”

Orange County issues about 20,000 marriage licenses a year, so the new fee is expected to raise about $100,000 toward fighting domestic abuse. Nineteen dollars from every fee already goes toward fighting abuse, and the increase will pay for a program that helps battered women--and, in some cases, children, elderly people and even men--apply for a temporary restraining order to keep away the person who has hurt them.

Without the increase, that program would have faced imminent closure as the result of state budget cuts last year, Granville said.

That marriage fees should pay for abuse protection was an irony not lost on the supervisors. Gaddi H. Vasquez, for instance, called it a “unique, and shall we say innovative, funding approach.”

And though the new fees will make marriage in Orange County pricier, all of the dozen or so license applicants interviewed Wednesday as they lined up in the clerk’s office said they would go ahead with their marriages, fees or no fees.

“Would that deter me from getting married?” asked Margaret Warth of Laguna Niguel, her armed locked with her fiance’s. “Of course not. It wouldn’t matter if it was $3,000.”

The supervisors had counted on that, noting that when it comes to marriage, applicants are not likely to be chased off by paying a little more.

“I really doubt that as a fee this will act as a deterrent,” Supervisor Roger R. Stanton said during the board session. “All the rules of the demand curve do not apply.”

In fact, some of Wednesday’s applicants cheered the move, applauding the supervisors for taking steps to battle domestic abuse.

“I think it’s a good idea,” said Al Batina, a computer training manager who works in Santa Ana. “That’s basically the worst kind of crime, and they need to do something about it.”

Batina’s fiancee, Cherie Crane, nodded. “It’s a tax issue, and nobody likes taxes,” she said. “But in marriage costs, $5 is nothing, and this sounds like a good program.”

Among the rare dissenters, none argued that the program did not deserve funding. But a few did suggest that the county look elsewhere for its money.

“It’s ridiculous to add it to marriage licenses,” said Dixie Alexander of Newport Beach. “I can think of a lot of places where they could get that money. They could tax all those people who live in yachts in Newport.”

Marriage License Fees Compared How Orange County marriage license fees (after the increase in October) compare with surroundingcounties and Las Vegas. Orange* $47 Los Angeles: $35 Riverside: $55 San Bernardino: $35 San Diego: $35 Las Vegas: $27 *Effective Oct. 1, 1990 Source: Counties listed Recorded Public Marriages in OC In thousands As of Aug. 31, 1990: 9,109 Source: Orange County Recorder