“MARRIAGE LAW REFORM.”

Evening Star, Issue 4115, 5 May 1876, Page 4

“MARRIAGE LAW REFORM.”

The Marriage Law Reform Association, the object of which is to legalise marriage with a deceased wife’s sister in the IJ nited Kingdom, have, in furtherance of their own peculiar ends, drawn attention to the bills passed by various Australian Legislatures for permitting this marriage, which have received the royal assent, though the association are wrong in affirming that either the late or the present Administration advised Her Majesty to give that assent without considerable hesitation. Much attention has been attracted by this matter in England, and three questions have been openly asked in the public press ; they are these : Will such Australian marriages bo legal in the United Kingdom ? can they be contracted in Australia by persons who have not acquired any Australian domicile or civil status, say by an enthusiastic couple who have crossed from the old country to the Antipodes there innocently to offer their sacrifice to the God of Love? and thirdly, is it not anomalous that our Australian brethren may wed their sisters-in law. while we at Home have our hands tied ? As to the first of these queries, the answer is negative. The children of an Australian marriage of the special kind of which we are speaking will be incapable of succession to personal estate or inheritance of real property by the English, Scotch, or Irish laws. Sir Thomas Chambers, the prominent advocate of the' principles of the Reformation, woman’s rights, and that much-fought-for lady, the deceased wife's sister, is understood to be bringing in a Bill “ to remove doubts with reference to certain Colonial marriages.”