§ LORD CHELMSFORD,in rising to call attention to the Report of the Royal Commission on the Laws of Marriage presented to the House in the Session of 1868; and to ask the Lord Chancellor, Whether there is any probability of the introduction by Her Majesty's Government of any measure founded on that Report? said, their Lordships would recollect that some time ago a celebrated case occurred, known as the Yelverton case, which exhibited in a remarkable manner the difficulties which arose in ascertaining the legal status of an individual in consequence of the difference of the marriage laws existing in the United Kingdom. That case was tried in the Irish Courts and in the Scotch Courts, and ultimately it came to their Lordships' House for final decision. In the progress of the case, there was a great conflict of opinion upon questions involving the peculiarities of the Scotch marriage law, and also the statute law of mixed marriages in Ireland. The result of the controversy was, the expression of a very great desire that, if possible, an inquiry should be instituted with a view to ascertain whether the marriage laws of the different parts of the kingdom could not be brought into closer conformity. The Government of the day were pressed upon the subject in the House of Commons, and a Royal Commission was issued in 1865 for the pur- 1699 pose to which he had referred. That Commission, of which he was appointed Chairman, consisted of men most of whom had attained to high judicial positions. England was represented by his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack, Lord Cairns, Lord Lyveden, Lord Hatherley, Lord Penzance, Mr. Walpole, the Queen's Advocate, and himself; Ireland by Lord Mayo, the present Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and Mr. Monsell; and Scotland by the Lord Justice General, the Lord Advocate, and Mr. Dunlop. They began their labours by obtaining a summary of the marriage laws of the three different parts of the United Kingdom, and by the desire of the Commissioners he issued a Circular requesting, and which elicited, information on various heads, and which was addressed to all the Archbishops and Bishops in England, Ireland, and Scotland, Protestant and Roman Catholic; to the Moderators of the Scotch Church, Free Church, and United Presbyterian Church of Scotland; to the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland; to persons connected with the Presbyterian Church in Ireland; to clergymen of the Established Church in England; to the President and Vice President of the Wesleyan Conference in England; to various persons, members of the Dissenting Bodies in England; to the Registrar General in England and to many of the Registrars throughout the country. In all no fewer than 97 persons gave evidence before the Commissioners, or valuable information in reply to the Circular. The inquiry extended over three years, but that arose from the fact of many of its members having judicial and other functions to perform, which made it difficult to appoint convenient times for our meetings. The present Lord Chancellor not only gave his assistance as a Member of that Commission, but undertook to prepare the Report of the Commission, and that able and carefully prepared document was entirely his work. The Report was signed by all the Commissioners, with one exception. The late Lord Mayo, who was then Chief Secretary for Ireland, had been unable, from the pressure of his official duties, to attend a sufficient number of the meetings of the Commission to justify him in signing the Report. The Lord Chancellor of Ireland and Mr. Monsell signed the Report, but dissented from the recom- 1700 mendations affecting the Law of Divorce and the Jurisdiction of Divorce Courts, believing that the marriage tie was indissoluble, and that divorce a vinculo was contrary to the law of God. The Lord Justice General also signed the Report; but in a note he expressed his preference for the Scotch law of marriage. The Report of the Commissioners began by laying down the principles of a sound marriage law. It contained recommendations as to the capacity of persons to contract marriage; and as to the solemnities that should be required—as to the requirements preliminary to marriage, the requisite notice, residence, and declaration of the parties—with respect to the publication of bans it did not recommend their abolition, but that the publication of them should not be required as a condition of the lawfulness or regularity of a marriage. It recommended the abolition of canonical hours, and the solemnization of marriage in the presence of witnesses; it recommended the repeal of the law as to mixed marriages; it contained most important recommendations as to the notice of the intention to solemnize marriage, and as to the certificate of the minister or civil officer receiving the notice, and the Report suggested that this certificate would supersede the necessity for a licence, and recommended that the practice of granting common licences should cease. It contained most valuable recommendations for the registration of all marriages, and recommended the repeal of all existing statutes upon the subject of marriage, and the embodying the enactments necessary to give effect to the recommendations in a single statute. The Report was made five years ago, and it was matter of regret, if not of reproach, that nothing had been done since that period. Of course, a measure of so much importance could only be introduced under the authority of the Government, and he did not expect that at the present moment his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack would be prepared to give any pledge on the subject. He trusted, however, that some assurance would be given that the matter would not pass altogether unnoticed, and that his noble and learned Friend, as the author of the Report, and more competent perhaps than any other person to address himself to the subject, would not allow the labours of the Commis- 1701 sion to fall to the ground without bearing fruit, but that he would add to his high reputation by improving a law which affected the domestic relations of every family in the kingdom, from the highest to the lowest.
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, it would not be possible for him to give a pledge as to the time or manner in which the Government would deal with this subject, if indeed during their tenure of office, it would be possible to deal with it at all. He was, however, grateful to his noble and learned Friend for calling their Lordships' attention to a question the importance of which was much greater than most of those which occupied the attention of Parliament, and which if not dealt with when it was attracting no public attention, would sooner or later require to be dealt with under less favourable circumstances. He was the more sensible of the importance of the subject, because every year more than one Act became necessary to set right some slip, mistake, or error arising from the state of the marriage law in one portion or other of the United Kingdom. In England and Ireland the faults of the marriage law lay in an opposite direction from those of the marriage law of Scotland, turning as they did on sectarian differences or formal observances. In Scotland, on the other hand, there was absolutely nothing to insure certainty as to the fact, or to preclude the most uncomfortable questions from subsequently occurring. What were called irregular marriages in Scotland, were however, rare exceptions; and the peculiarities of the Scotch marriage law, which rendered such marriages possible, could be easily got rid of without any hardship or inconvenience to the well-conducted portion of the community. The Commissioners recommended a system of registration which would tend to insure the facility and certainty of marriage, and, at the same time, to check improvident and hasty marriages. Their endeavour was to reconcile, as far as might be, the great and fundamental doctrine that matrimony was a civil contract, with the general belief that it was a contract which ought to receive, as far as might be, a religious sanction. With that view the Commissioners proposed that every authorized minister of religion ordinarily officiating in any place of public worship throughout the kingdom 1702 might solemnize marriages for civil purposes. At the same time, marriages might be solemnized by civil registry alone if the parties desired it. This scheme was by no means a complicated one. It would be of uniform application throughout the three kingdoms, and it would put an end to the cases of uncertainty with which Scotland had furnished us with frequent examples, while, at the same time, it would get rid of every remnant of the sectarian system by which the validity of marriage could be affected. These proposals dealt equally with all churches and denominations, and he trusted they would one day be embodied in a law. Without pledging the Government in any way, if it should be his good fortune at some future time to be instrumental in submitting such a law to the House, it would not be the least of the services which he desired to be able to render to the country.