"MARRIAGE SHOPS."

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 194, 15 August 1907, Page 5

"MARRIAGE SHOPS."

' GOVERNMENT RESTRICTIONS { URGED. • In'the Anglican Synod of New South Wales, the subject of matrimonial bureaus was debated at length. The Rev. C. F. Ssymour moved: "That the. synod urgently "requests the Government to take steps to lessen the facilities for the celebration of improper • and clandestine marriages, and to amend the law so as to deal effectively with marriage bureaus and matrimonial, agencies." Tue Government should be asked to amend the law so as to make it a punishable offence for any minister, to marry in a marriager-bureau or in connection with a matrimonial agency. . •■ ivlt. F. -S. s Boyee said that there should be some law. whereby the. RegistrarGeneral would be given.discretion' as to whom he should register as .ministers. It had been ■ stated that ■ during ■ one. month no less, than 277 mariages had been celebrated in one. bureau. His experience in the Divorce Court was that in, far too great a :proportion of eases these bureaus were responsible: for hasty marriages, and one out of every ten cases •tnat came before the Court was the outcome of a twreau marriage. Such was the ■ stanid taken <ty the present Judge ; in divorce on this matter that he now refused, to accept any certificate coming ,from Ahese 'marriage .shops," as he termed them, and compelled solicitors to produce the Registrar-General's certificate. On one occasion it was sought to put in the certificate of one minister who called his church the "Re-orga'nieed Band of Hope," or some such name. (Laughter.) It was humorous certainly, but the Regis-trar-General at present had no option but to" register the minister of any section of peoples who banded themselves together, called, themselves a church, and held religious services ascertain periods. In a recent case registration had been refused because the Registrar-General considered that the applicant had not a bona-fide church.. But that official should be given , greater discretion covering all cases, and the Judges themselves believed that the Government should bs asked to legislate in regard to this evil.

Archdeacon Nield considered that no marriogs should take place unless the •clergyman had at least seven clear days' notice: Further, regulations regarding consent to the marriage of minors should be posted- at every registry office in the State, as there was an astonishing ignorance of their provisions.

The motion was agreed to.