WEDDING TIME PUZZLE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19311, 24 October 1924, Page 8

WEDDING TIME PUZZLE.

DAYLIGHT-SAVING INCIDENT.

HONEYMOON CLOUD REMOVED.

SEQUEL TO LATE CEREMONY.

Ib a wedding’ which takes place in England after 3 pjn., summer time, legally bin-fin"-? Or is 3 p.m., Greenwich time, the prescribed hour after which marriages may i-.oi. icga.iij cc soieiianised? Those questions arose in July, through the wedding at Little Heath, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, which, owing to a two hours delay waiting for a. clergyman, took place at 3.45 p.m. instead of 2 p.m., the hour arranged. Under the law of England all marriages must be solemnised before 3 pm., but m this case everyone was so busy finding a clergyman that no one noticed the tune. It was not until afterwords that the officiating clergyman became doubtful as to tbs legality of the ceremony. Local opinion propounded the ingenious theory that Parliament must have had Greenwich time, and not a fancy summer time, in mind when the 3 p.m. law was made, and that as it was only 2.45 p.m. when the ceremony was concluded by Greenwich time, the marriage would probably stand. The Bishop of St. Albans, however, who is head of the diocese, decided otherwise, and ruled that the ceremony was null and void. He advised that the parties should be married again at the earliest possible time. This was after the couple had gone to Margate for a fortnight’s holiday. Notwithstanding this, Mr D. Clark, the bride's father, declared: “They are as much married now as ever they will be. They were married in God’s time, not Greenwich time." Some legal authorities held that the worda of the Marriage Act requiring that all marriages, except those by special license, must br. performed between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., constituted a “direction” which, if not carried out, did not necessaily nullify a marriage. According to Mr Arthur S. May, the author of “Miarriage in Church, Chapel, and Register Office,” a leading authority, “The Act prohibits a marriage after tbo statutory hours, but does not declare that if it takes place it is invalid. The result is that such a marriage, although it ought not to take place in such a manner, is a perfectly good marriage. It is a canon of construction that any words in a statute as to marriage, though prohibitory and negative, cannot be held to infer a nullity unless that nullity is specifically declared in the Act.”

However, the couple took a happy course out of the difficulty. The climax to all the arguments and uncertainty come on July 26 when the Rev. G. C. Ward journeyed t« Margate and laid the facts before the young couple. They immediately decided that- a second oermony was advisable, and travelled back to Little Heath by motor car with Mr Ward, where a second service was performed at the eame church well within time. No one knew anything' about it, and the couple quietly returned to Margate to continue their interrupted 'honeymoon.