Marriage and Divorce Laws of the World Part 19

Marriage is forbidden:

1. Of minors under the age of 21 years, unless with parental consent.

2. Of persons of adult age who are incapable of properly governing themselves or their estates, without the authorization of their legal representatives.

3. Of an adulterous wife with her accomplice who has been condemned for the offence.

4. Of a wife who has been condemned as the princ.i.p.al or accomplice of the crime of homicide with a princ.i.p.al or accomplice in the same crime.

5. Of any person bound by solemn vows of religion to a life of chast.i.ty.

The canon law of the Catholic Church defines the religious rules and spiritual effects of marriage, while the civil law defines the civil rules and temporal effects of the contract.

A minister of the church who celebrates a marriage contrary to the requirements of Article 1058 of the Civil Code incurs criminal penalties.

Marriage between Portuguese subjects who are non-Catholics is recognized as producing full civil effects.

CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY.--The following persons are forbidden to marry each other:

1. Ascendants and descendants.

2. Persons related collaterally in the second degree.

3. Males who have not completed their fourteenth year and females who have not completed their twelfth year of age.

4. Persons already bound by marriage.

Any infraction of these prohibitions makes a marriage voidable.

MARRIAGE PRELIMINARIES.--Whoever desires to contract marriage according to the manner provided by the civil law of the land must present to the civil officer of the State acting in the place of the applicant's domicile a declaration setting forth:

1. The full names, ages, occupations and domiciles of the contracting parties.

2. The full names, professions and domiciles of the parents.

Upon receiving this declaration the civil officer publishes a notice of the intended marriage and informs all interested persons to file their objections, if any exist, within fifteen days. If at the end of this period no valid objection to the marriage has been formulated the civil officer proceeds to the celebration of the marriage.

CELEBRATION.--For the civil celebration of marriage the contracting parties, or their duly empowered proxies, appear before the civil officer of the commune, attended by competent witnesses. If the marriage is celebrated in the official bureau of the commune two witnesses are sufficient; if outside of such bureau six witnesses are required.

Any civil officer celebrating a marriage contrary to these provisions incurs penal punishment.

ANNULMENT OF MARRIAGE.--A Catholic marriage--that is, one solemnized according to the canonical law--can only be annulled by an ecclesiastical tribunal and according to the laws of the Catholic Church enforceable in Portugal.

A sentence of an ecclesiastical tribunal annulling a marriage is executed by the civil authority of the land.

A marriage concluded before a civil officer in the form established by the civil law of the land can only be annulled by a civil court.

JUDICIAL SEPARATION.--A separation of the person and goods may be had for the following causes:

1. Adultery of the wife.

2. Adultery of the husband, if such adultery creates a public scandal or if the husband brings his concubine into the home he has established for his wife.

3. Sentence of one of the spouses to life imprisonment.

4. Cruel and abusive treatment.

DIVORCE.--Under the law of Portugal as it existed down to the day when King Manuel II. was dethroned and a Republic declared there was no such thing as divorce recognized. Portugal has been for centuries a Catholic country, and the decrees of the Council of Trent, as well as all the other rules and regulations concerning marriage stated by the Catholic Church, have been accepted by Portugal as part of the law of the land.

However, since December 1, 1910, when the present provisional government was const.i.tuted, certain new laws have been promulgated by government decree. One of these new laws relates to divorce and is most modern and radical in its scope. It permits the courts to grant absolute divorces for a number of reasons, including "mutual consent of the parties."

Whether such laws, created by proclamation instead of legislation, will be incorporated into the inevitable new Civil Code of Portugal is a problem for the future. Our endeavour in this chapter has been to state the organic law of Portugal as it at present exists, untouched by legislation on the statute books of that ancient land.

CHAPTER XX.

ROUMANIA.

Roumania is the name officially adopted by the united kingdom that comprises the former princ.i.p.alities of Walachia and Moldavia. In its native form it appears simply as "Roumania," representing the claim to Roman descent put forward by its inhabitants.

The Roumanian Civil Code from which we summarize in this chapter the law of marriage and divorce of Roumania is practically a copy of the French Civil Code.

MARRIAGE.--A man must be eighteen years of age and a woman fifteen in order to contract lawful marriage, except a dispensation is granted by the King.

The free consent by both contracting parties is essential.

Men under twenty-five years of age and women under twenty-one cannot marry without the parental consent. Men under the age of thirty and women under the age of twenty-five are obliged to ask the consent of their parents.

A man or woman is allowed but one spouse at a time.

CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY.--Marriage is forbidden between relatives, whether by blood or by marriage, in the direct line, and in the collateral line to the fourth degree, inclusive, by the Roman method of counting. The prohibition obtains whether the relationship arises from legitimate or illegitimate birth. A dispensation from such impediments may, in special cases, be granted, by the King.

Marriage is forbidden between relatives by adoption and between G.o.dparents and their G.o.dchildren.

Marriage is forbidden between guardians and wards, or between trustees and wards, and the father, son or brother of a guardian or trust cannot marry the ward until the accounts of the guardianship or trust have been properly audited and settled.

Soldiers cannot marry without the consent of the military authorities.

Marriage is expressly forbidden to priests, monks and nuns.

Divorced persons are forbidden to remarry each other.

A woman whose marriage has been dissolved by death or divorce may not marry again until the expiration of ten months after such dissolution.

MARRIAGE PRELIMINARIES.--A marriage must be preceded by the publication of the names, occupations and residences of the parties themselves, and of their parents, on two Sundays before the celebration. Such publication of banns must be made before the door of the parish church and the door of the town hall of the commune where the marriage is to be concluded. The marriage cannot be solemnized until the fourth day after the second publication of banns. If a year pa.s.ses after such publication without marriage a new publication is necessary. If, upon the publication of banns, the intended marriage is opposed, as it may be, by any person, the registrar of the commune must defer the celebration of marriage until the opposition has been withdrawn or overruled.