Edward Heaton courts the question: when is a marriage a marriage?
In the vast majority of divorce cases, there is no issue over the validity of the marriage in question, which is usually established to the satisfaction of the court by the production of a marriage certificate. This is not, however, always the case. Practitioners need to be alert to the fact that the term “marriage” means different things to different people. In certain circumstances, a marriage which may not, on the face of it, appear to satisfy the requirements under English law may still be treated as a marriage upon, for example, the death of one of the parties or the breakdown of the relationship in question for the purposes of determining the issue of the division of capital and income.
In the recently reported decision in the case of Al-Saedy v Musawi [2010] EWHC 3293 Fam, [2010] All ER (D) 292 (Oct), Bodey J reviewed briefly the common law presumption of marriage dating back to the 19th century and, while on the specific facts of the case, he determined that,
