MARRIAGE ACT FLAW

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22388, 7 April 1936, Page 5

MARRIAGE ACT FLAW

JEWISH COUPLE'S QUANDARY SOLUTION AT CANBERRA [from our own correspondent] SYDNEY, April 1 Canberra has become a modern Gretna Green to a Jewish couple who. owing to a curious Haw in tho Now South Wales Marriage Act of 1599, were prevented from marrying in this State. The couple sought legal advice when a district registrar refused to perform the marriage ceremony. They were advised that district registrars had no power to marry Jewish or Quaker people. As one of the parties to the proposed marriage had been a party to a divorce suit on the ground of noncompliance with an order for restitution of conjugal rights, the Jewish Church also refused to marry them, as this is not recognised by that Church as a ground for divorce. Upon the advice of their lawyer they went to Canberra, where, under the Marriage Ordinance of 1929, any persons, no matter what their* religion, may be married before the district registrar for the Federal Capital Territory. Now that the (law has been discovered, the New South Wales Minister of Justice will be asked to move for an amendment. The New South Wales Act of 1899, based upon the British Act, provides in specific terms for the marriages of Jews and Quakers. J his provision was introduced when the British Government attempted to stop the scandalous trade in marriage linos, practised in Fleet Prison, London, where impecunious clergymen flourished on business among runaway couples. Clandestine marriages, were, therefore, prohibited, except in tlio case of the Jew and the Quaker, who were not included because they had their own special services. When the various Marriage Acts were consolidated in 1850, and the system of civil marriages was introduced in New South Wales, the old clause, "nothing in this Act shall apply to Jews or Quakers," was also inadvertently incorporated in the Act. Jews and Quakers were thereby excluded from the privilege of civil marriage. . j .