Orders of the Day — Licensing of Marriages on Unlicensed Premises Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 13 February 1970.

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Photo of Mr Edward Lyons Mr Edward Lyons , Bradford East 12:00, 13 February 1970

Certainly. Till death do us part becomes virtually meaningless in terms of marrying a dying man.

The whole thing could be used as a weapon of revenge and malice in the hands of a man determined that his first wife should not be able to make a satisfactory claim, for example, under the Inheritance (Family Provision) Act. At present, if a man keeps his ex-wife out of his will she is still entitled to ask the court for a share in the estate. The court, while it cannot take into account the existence of a woman with whom the dead man lived out of wedlock, must take into account for financial provision the woman with whom he lived in wedlock. One can imagine a man, not having had the decency—or the courage, perhaps—to marry the woman with whom he has lived for many years, on his deathbed taking the view that he is prepared to marry her provided he does not have to live with her, and in order to prejudice the claims of the first wife and the children of the first marriage.

There is a doctrine in law known as undue influence. One worries about the pressures that can be exerted on a man who is sick unto death who may be very old, who may be wealthy, and who may he a bachelor or a widower. How does one protect him or his estate from the effects of a marriage under this Bill? It is said that the authorities have to be satisfied under the Bill that, in effect, the man is of sound mind, but registrars and superintendent registrars do not know the individual. They see him only, presumably, at the ceremony in his home. There is no real way of ensuring that that sick person has not been prevailed upon, for financial reasons, to marry the person wishing to marry him; pressure, in other words, coming from the wife or from someone on her behalf, so that not only can she have a widow's pension, if she is over 50—and shortly it will be over 40 if proposals now under consideration are enacted—but can also inherit his estate.

There is provision for a caveat—a notice of argument that there are grounds why the marriage should not take place —but will people hear of this project for a marriage? Will the interested people even learn of it? The curious thing is that this Measure takes away the precaution, which now exists under the Marriage Act, 1949, that one or other of the parties to the marriage must have had a normal place of residence in the area for 15 days before notice of marriage. The Bill waives that precaution, presumably because it is expected that the man will be in hospital, or suddenly taken there, but that also lends itself to abuse, because a man could be transported to an area completely foreign to his native environment and there wed with no friend present.

I do not say that that will be a very likely occurrence. We do not follow the practice of Scotland, where we have heard that people who are hale and healthy, sound in wind and limb, can marry at will. We say that the only people who shall be married in this relative secrecy, compared with a public place, are those who are not in a position to protect their own interests—the very sick. That is something which we should consider.