Marriage I

The current position of the law as it relates to the definition of marriage

To begin with, the Laws of Guyana namely the Marriage Act cap 45:01 and the Matrimonial Clauses Act cap 45:02, do not precisely define the term marriage, however, it does constitute certain criteria which indicates that a marriage ought to be heterosexual (i.e. between a man and a woman). Therefore, as an alternative source of law, we must turn our attention to a common law definition of marriage for assurance and clarity.

The legal systems in the Caribbean belong essentially to the common law legal tradition, with some historical linkages to the civil law legal tradition. These legal systems were born out of the experience of colonialism; this transplantation is important since it is the foundation of the doctrine of the reception of law. The reception of law doctrine describes the process whereby legal phenomena, which were developed in a given environment, are consciously exported to another environment. According to the Civil Law of Guyana cap 6:01, the date of reception is the 1st January, 1917.

Moreover, in English law, marriage is an agreement by which a man and a woman enter into a legal relationship by becoming husband and wife and such relationship imposes mutual rights and duties. Marriage also confers a status, that is, of married persons to whom the law assigns legal capacities or incapacities. Lord Penzance defined marriage in Hyde v Hyde [1866] LR 1 P & D 130, 133 as “the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of others”. The petitioner in this case claims dissolution of his marriage on the ground of adultery of his wife. The alleged marriage was contracted at Utah, in the territories of the United States of America, and the petitioner and the respondent both professed the faith of the Mormons at the time. The petitioner has since quitted Utah, and abandoned the faith, but the respondent has not. After the petitioner had left Utah, the...