Getting Married-New
p. 73 · Read in the full issue
Hebrides Style
A draft Joint Regulation designed to make New Hebridean marriages legally valid was discussed at a meet ing of the New Hebrides Advisory Council in September.
The regulation is intended to clarify what kinds of marriage will be acceptable for registration when the recently announced plan to register births, deaths and marriages in the Condominium is introduced (RIM, Oct., p. 28).
The regulation provides for legal recognition of three kinds of mar riage—marriage celebrated in a church by an ordained priest or minister, marriage by a District Registrar (i.e., a civil marriage, which does not at present ex|st for New Hebrideans) and marriage performed according to native custom.
The regulation would also provide that a marriage could only be registered if it were celebrated by a person legally authorised to officiate.
The Advisory Council will consider the regulation again at its next meet ing in December after local councils and clergymen have had an oppor tunity to study it. • See "De facto marriages a growing Fiji problem", p. 75.