FRENCH MARRIAGE LAW.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1230, 21 August 1884, Page 1

FRENCH MARRIAGE LAW.

One more illustration (says the Globe) has reached us of the perils attending incautious marriages between - subjects of England and Fiance. The story U from a correspondent at Jersey, and relates to a marriage which took place there in May last between a young lady of English nationality and a Frenchman whose parents reside in Paris. Prior to the ceremony the fianci had written to his home for the consent required by French law, and, receiving no reply, he interpreted as approval the silence of his father and mother. But in March of the present year, awakened to action, it seems, by the birth of their son’s, child, the parents applied to a French tribunal, and obtained an annulment of the marriage on the ground that it had taken place without being preceded by the application and notices prescribed by French law. Nor are special circumstances of hardship wanting in a case quite cruel enough in Us bare details. The wife was not allowed time in which to oppose the application, judgment being entered in default while she still lay ill in bed. The fact that the Frenchman’s mother is an Englishwoman, married to her husband in this country, is clear aggravation of a piece of parental callousness and cruelty which, assuming our informant’s statement to bo true, is not often paralleled in cases of this kind. The position of the young mother is now simply heartrending. Her union having been dissolved by French law, she stands exactly in the position towards her French “ husband” as if she had never been married to him. He may repudiate his moral obligations at any moment ; as for legal obligations, these have ceased to hind him. Even with the most honorable intentions in the world, he must share the humiliating position created for the mother of his child by his parents. The case is thus i peculiarly distressing one, bit: it is one, we regret to tell our correspondent, fnr which there appears to be no remedy. The most that can be done is to narrate it us a conspicuous warning to others.