CRUISER WEDDING

Hokitika Guardian, 30 August 1938, Page 8

CRUISER WEDDING

OFFICIAL COMPLICATIONS. % SETTLED BY MATHEMATICS. MELBOURNE, August 17. How a wedding on a cruiser caused complications which were settled mathematically was revealed by the Federal Attorney-General’s department in Melbourne this week. While the Australian squadron was exercising off the south-eastern coast of Australia early this year an officer of one of the cruisers was married to a New South Wales girl, aged 17 years. The ceremony took place oil board the ship. v After the couple had left on their honeymoon the clergyman who had performed the ceremony landed at Jervis Bay in the Federal Territory and sent the registration papers to the registrar of marriages at Canberra. A few days later the bride and bridegroom received a letter from the registrar informing them that their marriage was invalid on two counts —that the bride, being a minor, had notobtained statutory consent to her marriage within'the Territory, and that the officiating clergyman was not licensed to perform marriages within the Territory.

Inquiries revealed that all the formalities required by the law of New South Wales had been observed, but the assumption that the cruiser was in the territorial waters of the Federal Territory at the time of the ceremony was held to have voided them. Fortunately for the peace of mind of the couple, an officer of the AttorneyGeneral’s department thought that it would be worth while to inquire into the exact position of the cruiser when the cerelnony was performed. The boundary between the waters of the Federal Territory and of New South Wales north of Jervis Bay was rccurately determined, and when the shin’s commander was consulted it was found • that the cruiser had been iust outside the Federal boundary at the time 1 . '' The wedding was thus shown to be valid according to the laws of New South Wales, in which it was performed. Officers of the Attorney-Gen-eral’s department heaved a sigh of relief, but they are no doubt still wondering what t/hev would have done if dhe cruiser had drifted.into +he Federal matrimonial jurisdiction before the ceremony had been completed.