<![CDATA[This article examines the legal-dogmatic role of personal presence in matrimonial law, with particular attention to Hungarian law and comparative European practice. Although personal presence has traditionally been understood as a basic formal requirement of marriage, the emergence of online marriage has made this assumption less self-evident. The existing literature has mostly treated personal presence as a historical and doctrinal guarantee, while less attention has been paid to how digital marriage practices affect its function and recognition in private international law. The article first traces the development of the in persona principle from Roman and canon law to modern Hungarian matrimonial law, where the joint personal presence of the spouses is not merely a condition of validity but a constitutive element of marriage itself. It then compares European approaches to in persona and per procura marriages, distinguishing between strict, exceptional and more permissive models. The study further argues that online marriage cannot be classified simply as either in persona or per procura but should be understood as a distinct form of digitally mediated simultaneous presence. By examining Ukrainian and Utah online marriage models, together with selected recognition practices in France, Germany, Israel and Lebanon, the article shows that digital marriage raises questions of legal certainty, public policy, free consent and cross-border recognition. Finally, it proposes a risk-based recognition framework for foreign online marriages in Hungarian law. The article’s main contribution is to reinterpret personal presence functionally and to offer a doctrinally grounded model that preserves traditional safeguards while responding to digitalization and international mobility.]]>
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