Last Change:
05/26/2024
The Special Marriage Act
Year: 1872
Type: Domestic law
Rights Category: Social protection, Family life, Documentation
Description
The Special Marriage Act of 1872 provides a form of marriage for persons who do not profess the Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Parsi, Buddhist, Sikh, or Jaina religion, and for persons who profess the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or Jaina religion and to legalize certain marriages the validity of which is doubtful. This Act extends to the whole of Bangladesh.
Under this Act age of marriage does not comply with any other law of the country. As per section 2(2)- to marry under this Act the man must have completed 18 years (whereas in other laws the minimum age of marriage for men is 21 years) and the woman must have completed fourteen years (it is eighteen years in all other laws).
The right to adoption is prohibited under section 25 of this Act.
Selected provisions
2. Marriages may be celebrated under this Act between persons neither of whom professes the Christian or the Jewish, or the Hindu or the Muslim or the Parsi or the Buddhist, or the Sikh or the Jaina religion, or between persons each of whom professes one or other of the following religions, that is to say, the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or Jaina religion upon the following conditions:–
(1) neither party must, at the time of the marriage, have a husband or wife living:
(2) the man must have completed his age of eighteen years, and the woman her age of fourteen years, according to the Gregorian calendar:
(3) each party must, if he or she has not completed the age of twenty-one years, have obtained the consent of his or her father or guardian to the marriage:
(4) the parties must not be related to each other in any degree of consanguinity or affinity which would, according to any law to which either of them is subject, render a marriage between them illegal.
1st Proviso- No such law or custom, other than one relating to consanguinity or affinity, shall prevent them from marrying.
2nd Proviso- No law or custom as to consanguinity shall prevent them from marrying, unless a relationship can be traced between the parties through some common ancestor, who stands to each of them in a nearer relationship than that of great-great-grand-father or great-great-grand-mother, or unless one of the parties is the lineal ancestor, or the brother or sister of some lineal ancestor, of the other.
11. The marriage shall be solemnized in the presence of the Registrar and of the three witnesses who signed the declaration. It may be solemnized in any form, provided that each party says to the other, in the presence and hearing of the Registrar and witnesses, "I [A], take the [B], to be my lawful wife (or husband)."