DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 232, 6 February 1911, Page 5

DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER

THE CHANCELLOR MISTAKEN. By Cable —Press Association —Copyright. Received 5, 5 p.m. London, February 4. Finding that he was mistaken regarding the whole facts, Dr. Tristram has withdrawn the letter cabled yesterday. Dr. Tristram, Chancellor of the Diocese of London, in a letter to the Bishop of London (Dr. Ingram) stated that after the Deceased Wife's Sister Act had been passed the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Daviisovi) had requested him to issue licenses as Chancellor to those authorised to many mder the Act. also to innocent divorced parties. Ihc Primate considered it desirable that all marriages under the Deceased Wife's Sister Act should be by license, instead of by banns, in order to prevent parties to a marriage being subjected to annoyallCeß. RECENT LEGISLATION. The Bishop of London disagrees with the position taken up by Dr. Tristram regarding the issue of marriage licenses, and it is possible that the difficulty will reach the law courts. The Bishop instructed Dr. Tristram that no licenses for a marriage with a divorced person, or of a person with his deceased wife's sister, was to be issued without the Bishop's personal assent in writing. Dr. Tristram replied that he was bound to observe the law of the Kingdom, even when it was at variance with the Bishop's opinion. The Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act, 1907, declares that no marriage with a deceased wife's sisten then subsisting or subsequently solemnised, shall on that account be void, or voidable as a civil contract. But a clergyman is to be exempt from liability to any suit, penalty, or censure for any act or omission by him, which would not have rendered him so liable if the Act had not been passed. He, therefore, incurs no liability whatsoever by refusing to publish the banns of, o" perform such a marriage, or to allow it to take place in his church. On the oth.r hand, the Act declares ttiat, where an incumbent refuses to marry parties, who but for such refusal would have a right to be married in his church, he may permit another clergyman, entitled to officiate in the diocese, who is willing to do so, to marry them in the church. Whether, however, the Act, by simply declaring such a marriage not void or voidable as a civil contract, actually gives such a right, seem 3 a doubtful question.