160. Many of the older husbands and wives had already been married before by customary ceremonies. Such marriages are expressly authorized by section 38(2) of the Ordinance, which provides that the parties to a customary marriage celebrated before 7th October 1971 may, if they so desire and provided they have not living any other undivorced spouse, contract with each other a marriage under the Ordinance, and that this shall not be deemed to prejudice the previous customary marriage. There are two reasons why people already married by a Chinese customary ceremony remarry under the Ordinance. Either they have become Christians and wish to be formally remarried in their Church for religious reasons; or more usually--not having a marriage certificate that is acceptable to public authorities, local or foreign, they marry in a Registry in order to obtain an official marriage certificate that will be accepted everywhere as evidence of the marriage. Although under the Marriage Reform Ordinance 1970 (see paragraph 207) Chinese customary and modern marriages celebrated in Hong Kong are declared or deemed to be valid and may be post-registered by the Registrar of Marriages, many who lack sufficient evidence to support an application for registration or whose marriage was celebrated outside the Colony are still remarrying under the Marriage Ordinance. During 1970-71, 2,710 marriages took place between parties already married by customary ceremonies of one kind or another. 20 of these remarriages were performed at licensed places of worship, the remainder at the Registries. The total of 2,710, amounting to 13.97% of the marriages between parties of Chinese race, was 117 more than that for 1969-70, an increase of 4.51%. The following is an analysis of the time lapse between the registered marriage and the previous customary marriage for these cases:
Within 1 year
494
Over 1 year but within 5 years
583
Total
Over 5 years
1,633
2,710
161. Of the 19,953 marriages registered, 19,399 were between parties of Chinese race; 226 marriages were between non-Chinese grooms and Chinese brides, and 53 between Chinese grooms and non-Chinese brides; the remaining 275 were between parties both of whom were non-Chinese. 135 widowers and 56 widows remarried. 360 of the parties married were divorced persons, and in accordance with the normal practice of the Registry the divorce documents were carefully scrutinized before the marriage was permitted to take place.
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