mentary Dispositions (1961), which sought to cure formal defects in wills which might arise out of confusion or ignorance as to the proper connecting factor. The Sub-Committee would recommend that, in the first place, compliance or attempted compliance with the law of either the People's Republic of China, or of the former Republic of China (now in force in Taiwan) should serve to validate marriages celebrated in the Colony. Further, compliance with the customary law of the so-called place of origin ("ancestral domicile" would perhaps be a more accurate description) or of the ancestral clan or lineage of either party, or with the customary law in the place of marriage either in China or in any Chinese community overseas, should also give rise to a valid marriage. Finally, this limb of definition might also properly include compliance with the law or custom of a religious group, for its believed (although the point has never been raised in connection with Chinese marriages in the Colony) that the unregistered marriages in China of certain Muslim and Christian Chinese might otherwise be excluded.
47. The exact evidential requirements of the first two limbs of the definition as proposed by the Sub-Committee would be relatively easy to formulate, it is believed. The third limb would present a more difficult problem, necessitating the admission of a wide range of evidence including, it is suggested, the evidence of the parties themselves as to the custom applicable to their circum- stances, a form of testimony approved by the Full Court (Scholes and Huggins, JJ.) in Tsang Ching-hing and others v Tai Lee Con- struction Company, (1966) (Appeal No. 35 of 1966, as yet unreported) following the rule in Ganer v Lanesborough, (1790) 1 Peake 18.
48. The Sub-Committee appreciates that the introduction of the third limb of the definition could lead to complications for the Registrar in the Post-Registration of marriages concluded before the Appointed Date. However, it is thought that the great majority of recognizable marriages would fall within the ambit of the first two limbs of the definition, that is, would be recognizable without question as either Chinese Customary Marriages or as Chinese Modern Marriages. In complex cases the matter could properly be referred, by way of an appeal from the Registrar, or by way of mandamus (as is often the procedure in England) to the
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