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The Validity of Marriage and the Proper Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Richard Fentiman
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Extract

Contemporary convention has it that the essential validity of marriage in the conflict of laws is governed by the law of each partner's pre-nuptial domicile. But this is contestable. The present argument is that the cases which are said to authorise the traditional conceptual pattern are in reality examples of the proper law of status at work in English law.

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Articles
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The Cambridge Law Journal , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , July 1985 , pp. 256 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Law Journal and Contributors 1985

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References

1 The policy issues in this area are helpfully discussed by A. J. E. Jaffey (1978) 41 M.L.R. 38; T. C. Hartley (1972) 35 M.L.R. 571. See also E. I. Sykes (1965) 4 I.C.L.Q. 159 and Law Commission Working Paper No. 89 (1985).

2 The operation of this rule in the United States produces results which are interestingly different from the analysis of English law argued for here.

3 Ogden v. Ogden [1908] P. 46; Simonin v. Mallac (1860) 2 Sw. & Tr. 67.

4 Sottomayor v. De Barros (1877) L.R. 3 P.D. 1.

5 De Reneville v. De Reneville [1948] P. 100.

6 Mette v. Mette (1859) 1 Sw. & Tr. 416; Pugh v. Pugh [1955] P. 482.

7 Sottomayor v. De Barros (No. 2) (1879) 5 P.D. 94.

8 E.g. Lawrence v. Lawrence [1985] 1 All E.R. 506. Anthony Lincoln J.'s decision was upheld on appeal (Times, 27 March 1985). The Court of Appeal expressly declined to discuss the nature of the test of essential validity.

9 [1983] 1 A.C. 145.

10 Supra, n.8.

11 See, e.g., Fender v. St. John Mildmay [1938] A.C. 1, 23.

12 Russ v. Russ [1964] P. 315, 327.

13 [1965] P. 52, 64.

14 [1983] 1 A.C. 145, 166.

15 Bonython v. Commonwealth of Australia [1951] A.C. 201, 219.

16 [1983] 1 A.C. 145, 165.

17 The other members of the House of Lords agreed that public policy operated in Vervaeke v. Smith, though they did not subject it to the same degree of analysis as Lord Simon.

18 Supra, n.8.

19 Ibid., at 511–512.

20 (1861) 9 H.L.Cas. 193.

21 (1877) L.R. 3 P.D. 1.

22 Ibid., at 207.

23 (1835) 2 Cl. & F. 488.

24 Ibid., at 536–537.

25 (1861) 9 H.L.Cas. 193, 212.

26 (1858) 3 Sm. & Giff. 481, 532.

27 (1877) 3 P.D. 1.

28 (1879) 5 P.D. 94.

29 E.g., ibid. at 104.

30 E.g., ibid. at 101.

31 See Lawrence v. Lawrence, supra, n.8 at 511–512.

32 [1971] P. 286.

33 Ibid., at 294.

34 Ibid., at 295–296.

35 [1968] 2 O.B. 956.

36 Ibid., at 968.

37 [1973] Fam. 35.

38 See especially ibid., at 54.

39 [1948] P. 100.

40 Ibid., at 114.

41 Ibid., at 122.

42 Ibid., at 114.

43 Ibid., at 122.

44 [1968] P. 314.

45 Ibid., at 336.

46 Infra., n.69.

47 Ibid., at 325.

48 Infra., pp. 272–273; Re Paine [1940] Ch. 46 falls away as a dual domicile authority in so far as it rests on a dual domicile reading of Melle v. Melle, supra n.6.

49 Ibid., at 337.

50 [1979] Fam. 84.

51 Ibid., at 89.

52 Ibid., at 89.

53 Ibid., at 92.

54 Supra., n.6.

55 Supra., n.6.

56 Simonin v. Mallac (1860) 2 Sw. & Tr. 67; Brook v. Brook 3 Sm. & Giff. 481.

57 (1859) 1 Sw. & Tr. 416, 423.

58 Ibid., at 423.

59 Ibid., at 423–424. Cresswell J. seemed to think that the situation where one party was domiciled in England was within Brook; his doubt was whether the same was true of a naturalised subject.

60 [1955] P. 482, 494.

61 Souomayor v. De Barros (No. 2), supra, n.7.

62 E.g., The Abidin Daver [1984] 1 All E.R. 470, 476.

63 Lawrence v. Lawrence, supra, n.8.

64 The much criticised decision in Breen v. Breen [1964] P. 144 might, at its weakest, stand as authority for this possibility.

65 In the Will of Swan (1871) 2 V.R. (I.E. & M.) 47.

66 Padolecchia v. Padolecchia, supra n.44, at 335; Pugh v. Pugh, supra n.55, at 491–492; cf. The Marriage (Scotland) Act 1977, ss.l(2), 2(l)(a).

67 Reed v. Reed (1969) 6 D.L.R. (3rd) 617.

68 See Cheshire and North's Private International Law, 10th ed., at 343.

69 Sottomayor v. De Barros (No. 2), supra n.7; Odgen v. Ogden [1908] P. 46;Chelli v. Chelli[1909] P. 67.

70 Ponticelli v. Ponticelli [1958] P. 204.

71 Kenward v. Kenward [1951] P. 124, 144.

72 Perrini v. Perrini, supra n.50 at 92, Lawrence v. Lawrence, supra n.8 at 511.

73 Cook, Logical and Legal Bases of the Conflict of Laws, at 448.

74 E.g., Lawrence v. Lawrence, supra n.8.