485
recognise them as wives in English law for the purposes of claiming grants of administration, the right to obtain a grant of administration being regulated by the lex fori,
1.e. English law.
You will see that the case comes very near being an authority on the point, which has been the subject of so much departmental discussion in the past but never of a judicial decision, as to the extent to which English law is prepared
The point has mostly come to recognise polygamous marriages. before the Foreign office in connection with the question whether the issue of such marriages born abroad were to be re- garded as British subjects, and the present case seems to give some support to the view, which we have been disposed to tkae, that they were; for, although the proceedings were terminated by an agreed settlement and although there was nobody re- presented in the proceedings whose interest it was to deny that either of these unions could be recognised in any way
or support any claim to the estate, the President must have directed his mind to this question, and, if he had thought that these unions could not support any claims to the estate, he could not have ordered that the estate should be
distributed by the persons appointed administrators in accord-
ance with the settlement. If the President had taken a
different view, it would surely have been the duty of the
Court to have given an opportunity to the Treasury Solicitor
to cause him to be represented in the proceedings and to
claim the estate as bona vacantia.
A particularly interesting point in the case is, of
course, that both the Mohammedan marriages took place in
England, and, quite apart from the question of polygamy,
cannot be regarded as having been celebrated in accordance
with English law.
Yours sexy
rely Hal Malkin
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