236
licence at
No. 7 of 1875.
MARRIAGE.
thereof by signing your names to that effect, you become legally married to each other although no other rite of a civil or religious nature shall take place; and know ye further that this marriage cannot be dissolved during your lifetime, except by a valid judgment of divorce, and that if either of you, before the death of the other, shall contract another marriage while this remains undissolved, you will thereby be guilty of bigamy, and be liable to the punishment inflicted for that grievous offence.": and
(b) each of the parties shall then say to the other :-----
"I call upon all persons here present to witness that I, A.B., do take thee, C.D., to be my lawful wife [or husband]."
(4) The Secretary for Chinese Affairs and the parties and witnesses shall thereupon sign duplicate certificates in the form and manner hereinbefore prescribed.
(5) The Secretary for Chinese Affairs shall deliver one certificate to the parties and shall file the other in his office.
Marriage by 22. Whenever the Governor's special licence authorises special licence. the celebration of a marriage at a place other than a registered place of worship or the office of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, on taking the affidavit of one of the parties to the marriage, shall deliver to him or her a blank certificate of marriage in duplicate, and the minister celebrating the marriage, the parties, and two witnesses shall sign the same, in manner hereinbefore prescribed, and the minister shall deliver one certificate to the parties, immediately after the marriage, and shall transmit the other to the Secretary for Chinese Affairs within seven days thereafter, and the Secretary for Chinese Affairs shall file the same in his office.
Registration of certificates of marriage. 23. The Secretary for Chinese Affairs shall register all certificates of marriage filed in his office in such order and manner as he thinks best suited for easy reference thereto.
Effect of certificate of marriage or certified copy thereof. 24. Any certificate of marriage filed in the office of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, or a copy thereof, provided it purports to be signed and certified as a true copy by the Secretary for Chinese Affairs and to be sealed or stamped with his official seal, shall be admissible as evidence of the marriage to which the same relates in any court or before any person having by law or by consent of parties authority to hear, receive, and examine evidence.
*As amended by Law Rev. Ord., 1923,