The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-16 00:00:00

PRESENCE or WITNESSES.

We think that it will be expedient to retain and
make universal the rule now generally prevailing in
England and Ireland, that the soletnnisation of mar-
riage shall take place in the presence of, and be at-
tested by, two witnesses.

FORMS OF SOLEMNISATION,

Whatever may be the ceremonies or usages of any
Church or sect, or of Quakers or Jews, appropriate
to the due solemnisation of marriage, we are of
opinion that the State ought not in any case to take
notice of or enforce compliance with such ceremo-
nies or usages, as necessary to the validity of any
marriage, in other respects duly solemnised. Mar-
riage ought, in all such cases, to be held well con-
stituted by words of mutual consent to be husband
and wife (or of mutual declaration that they are
husband and wife) solemnly interchanged between
the parties, in the presence of any authorised cele-
brant or official witness. On the other hand, we do
not propose that any deviation should be required
by law from the internal regulations, usages, or
discipline of any Church or religious body, with
respect to the solemnisation of marriage, or with
respect to the obligation of ministers to solemnise
marriage on compliance with the legal requisites.

MARRIAGE BEFORE CIVIL REGISTRARS.

The presence of a civil registrar is, in England,
now required, on pain of nullity, at all mar-
riages except those of the Established Church,
and of Quakers and Jews ; but it is not re-
quired either at regular marriages in Scotland, or at
any marriages whatever (except those solemnised
in the registrars' offices) in Ireland. When the
duty of registrars quoad hoc is performed by the
officiating ministers or other official witnesses of
any religious denomination (as is' the case in all
marriages by the United Church of England and
Ireland, and by Jews and Quakers, and in all mar-
riagrs by Presbyterian and other Protestant Non-
conformist ministers in Ireland), the further security
or Lne attenuance of the civil registrar does not seem
to be important, still less to be a condition upon
which it can be necessary to make the validity of a
marriage depend. We are confirmed in this view
by considering how very insignificant a proportion
the number of marri▪
ages to which this requirement
is now applicable bears to the whole number cele-
brated every year in the United Kingdom ; and by
the fact, that the Legislature, after some years' ex-
perienceregistrar a
oft
allal mawarreriagtgues ring the presence of a civil
by
non-Presbyterian Pro-
testant Nonconformists in Ireland, deliberately re-
pealed it, and that no evil is shown to have resulted
from that change. The English Roman Catholic
Bishops, after descri▪ bing the incidence upon their
law, have recommended own communion of certain difficulties, considered
by
marriagethem to arise out
the course which we are prepared to advise ; stating
their opinion, that the most effectual remedy for
of
thisby anticipation state of the English
most of these difficulties would be
" to constitute
Catholic clergy the legal..witnesses of the marriages
i
celebrated by them, as s the case with the clergy
of the Established Church, with the secretaries of
the Jewish synagogues,
,and with the clergy of the
Catholic Church in Ireland." They add, that the
form of words requir▪
ed to be repeated before the
registrar, when he attends at their marriages, is
essentially the same as that which has already been
uttered in the religious rite; and that " this repeti-
tion to the registrar of what has been already de-
clared to the clergyman is apt to have a ludicrous
effect, without any comprehensible reason for it."
We shall propose, in a later part of this report,
that similar duties with respect to registration to
those now performed by the clergy of the United
Church of England and Ireland, the officiating
ministers at Presbyterian and other Protestant
Nonconformist marriages in Ireland, and the official
witnesses of the marriages of Quakers and Jews,
should in all cases, and in all parts of the United
Kingdom, be performed by the officiating minister
or official witness of marriage, whoever he may be ;
and if this recommendation should be adopted, we
think that (he law should no longer insist upon the
presence of a civil registrar at any marriage solem-
nised elsewhere than in his own office.
We are also of opinion that the option of con-
tracting a valid marriage without any religious
ceremony should continue to be offered, in all parts
of the United Kingdom, to all those who may de-
sire to avail themselves of it ; and that, for this
purpose, a law corresponding (in substance) with
the present laws of England and Ireland on that
subject, and enabling a formal and
i regular mar-
riage to be contracted by the solemn interchange or
declaration of matrimonial consent between or by
the parties, in the office and in the presence of a
superintendent or district registrar, should be in-
corporated into and form part of the future mar-
riage law of the United Kingdom. We use the
expression "declaration," as well as " interchange,"
of matrimonial consent, because we think it is ex-
dient to enable all persons in Scotland who may
hereafter enter into mutual engagements of that
kind which, under the present Scotch law,
might constitute irregular marriage, to ac-
quire the complete status of legal mar-
riage, not, indeed, with any retrospective
effect (except that which the law of Scotland ascribes
to all marriages in favour of children previously
born), but by such a form of words as to avoid
giving occasion for unnecessary scruples ; and also,
because it is desirable that persons whom the law
of Scotland might now hold to be actually, though
irregularly, married, by reason of secret engage-
ments entered into before the proposed change in
the law, should have the means of placing their
marriage beyond the reach of controversy, without
using any form of words which might imply that it
was previously invalid.

MIXED MARRIAGES.

We are of opinion that no marriage, of which
the celebration is in other respects valid, ought to
be annulled or declared void on any ground con-
nected with the religious profession, persuasion, or
belief of both or either of the parties thereto at or
before the time of the marriage. We therefore re-
commend that the Irish Statutes, forbidding the