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The President: Yes, but Mr. Upington’s proposal was rather a modification of that; his proposal would rather run in this way, that from and after the passing of this Act, marriages which have been or shall hereafter be contracted shall be deemed to be good and valid to all intents and purposes as in the United Kingdom, but that they shall not affect the succession to land, or some words of that kind.
Mr. Dodds: I think the real object of that Bill was to alter the law of inheritance as regards Colonial marriages.[1]On the main question I do not desire to offer any opinion.
Sir James Garrick: Sir Samuel Griffith has left with me this proposed clause:—
“Every marriage which has been heretofore or shall be hereafter lawfully solemnised in any part of Her Majesty’s Dominions between persons who at the time of the solemnisation of the marriage were domiciled in that part of Her Majesty’s dominions, and were competent according to the laws of that part of Her Majesty’s dominions to marry one another, shall throughout [2]Her Majesty’s dominions be deemed and held to be and to have been a valid marriage to all intents and purposes: Provided, nevertheless, that this Act shall not render valid any marriage in any case in which either of the parties to the marriage has afterwards, and before the passing of this Act, lawfully intermarried with another person; nor shall this Act be construed to deprive any person of any land or other property which he has lawfully inherited, or to
- ↑ The promoters of the Bill were not specially concerned about inheritance, but desired that these marriages should be as complete in England as in the Colonies.
- ↑ This proposal justly goes beyond the Bill of 1877, which claimed for the marriage valid in the colony recognition, not throughout Her Majesty’s dominions, but in the United Kingdom.
