Marriage
p. 141 · Read in the full issue
Legality Of A 1895
French Court Not Easy To Convince
ON June 21, 1895, a European named Walter Edwin Vivish was formally married to a Polynesian woman, Tiare Raupa, on the island of Manihiki, in the Cook Islands. The marriage was per formed by one who appears to have been a native pastor; and he issued to them a written certificate of marriage. They had one daughter, who is now Mrs. Edith Bopp du Pont, of Papeete, Tahiti.
In later years, Mr. Vivish con tracted a second marriage, by which he also had children. When he died in Tahiti, he left considerable property.
In due course, a family squabble developed over the property. The children of the second marriage claimed that Mrs. Edith Bopp du Pont could not inherit because the first marriage was not legal.
The dispute went to the French Courts, and legal information about the first marriage was sought, on behalf of Mrs. du Pont, through a lawyer in New Zealand.
The NZ Department of Islands Territories appears to have gone to considerable trouble to investigate this marriage of 1895. The certificate issued by the native pastor was examined and finally there was endorsed upon it the following: “Seen, copied and re corded at the office of the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages at Rarotonga in the Cook Islands —L.
A. Trenn, Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, 30th October, 1952.”
This appears to have been sent to Mrs. du Pont in Tahiti and by her submitted to a French Court. The latter apparently was not satisfied and sought an assurance that the marriage certificate actually was accepted by New Zealand and the Cook Islands Territory as legal.
The matter eventually reached Mr. Nevill, the Resident Com missioner in the Cook Islands; and he. on March 3, 1953, sent the [following certified radiogram to Mrs. Du Font in Papeete; “Wish to advises you that the marriage be tween Walter Edwin Vivish and Fiare Raupa at Manihiki on June 21. 1895, is valid and recognised by British law.”
That should have ended the matter; but, extraordinary as it vill appear, the people who chal enge the legality of the marriage argued before the French Courts ;hat the Resident Commissioner of 3.1. has no authority to declare the marriage certificate to be valid and ;he French Court apparently has
decided that it wants some further evidence of validity.
The matter now has gone back to NZ, but it is difficult to see what more can be done. It is clear from the documents up-to-date that the old certificate of 1895 has been accepted by the NZ-Cook Islands authorities as a valid certificate of marriage; that the marriage there fore was legal; and that the certificate accordingly will be recognised by any British court of law.
Apparently the French Court wants someone of higher official standing than Mr. Nevill to make the declaration. But who is more competent than the High Com missioner who is not only the ad ministrative but also the legal head of the Cook Islands Territory? if Mr. and Mrs. T. C. Widdowson, of Suva, left there in April on the first stage of a round-the-world holiday business trip that was expected to take about a year. First stop was Sydney.