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2. The Divorce Act (IV of 1869) applies to all Christians, and Section 19 enacts that a decree declaring a marriage null and void may be made, amongst other grounds, on the ground "that the parties are within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity (whether natural, or legal) or affinity." We have to say what the prohibited degrees applicable to the marriage now in question are, whether those prohibited by the law of England or by some other rule.

3. It will be convenient to divide the inquiry into three parts: First, how would the matter have stood if it depended only upon, the history of British acquisitions in India, and the Christians of various classes affected thereby, in the absence of statutory enactment? Secondly, what was the effect of the legislation prior to the Divorce Act, and what was the state of the law when that Act was passed? thirdly, what is the effect of that Act upon the prohibited degrees?

15. Under the Act of 1864 obviously a clergyman of the Church of Rome could only celebrate a marriage either as a licensed minister, or as a person licensed to certify under Part V. The Roman Catholic clergy objected to this Act, as we learn from the objects and reasons of the amending Act, upon certain points connected with registration, and the hours for celebrating marriages. We learn from the speech of the member who had charge of the amending Bill that they objected also to their clergy having to be licensed by the State, and to the provisions as to prohibited degrees. On the latter point it was urged that there were classes of Christians in Southern India who were compelled by social circumstances to marry within the degrees prohibited by English law; to remove the latter grievance was one of the objects of the fresh legislation. Act V of 1865 was accordingly passed, and it made two material changes. It put all especially ordained clergymen, including of course those of the Church of Rome, on the same footing with the clergy of the Churches of England and Scotland, and it excluded Roman Catholics from Part V. The effect was to allow Roman Catholics to have their marriages solemnized by their own clergy, according to the rites of their church, nothing being said one way or the other about prohibited degrees; and to prevent Native Roman Catholics from marrying under Part V. This Act had certainly no tendency to impose the English law on persons not previously subject, to it; the object was to avoid doing so.

20. We now come to the third branch of the inquiry, what the prohibited degrees, mentioned in Section 19 of the Divorce Act, are. Those words, or similar words, were, as has been seen, used in the 14 and 15 Vict., c. 40, and in the Acts of 1864 and 1865; and there are no doubt strong reasons for saying that, in the Acts prior to the Divorce Act, the words "the prohibited degrees" meant those prohibited by the, law of England. And the consideration then arises that if certain words are used in a certain sense in a series of Acts, the same sense ought ordinarily to be given to the same words in a subsequent Act dealing with "the same subject. This is a rule of construction not lightly to be departed from; and it must be admitted that Section 7 of the Divorce Act, referring to English law, adds some force to the contention that the language of the Divorce Act is the language of the English law.

21. But there are reasons on the other side of much greater weight tending to show that, whatever may have been the meaning of the prohibited degrees in the earlier Acts, they mean, in the Divorce Act, not the degrees prohibited by the law of England, but the degrees prohibited by the law applicable to the parties to the marriage. The Divorce Act and the Acts of 1864 and 1865 are in pari materia in the sense that they both deal with marriage; but they deal With it from different points of view, and for different purposes, the earlier Acts treating primarily of the form of marriage, the Divorce Act of its dissolution and kindred subjects. And in Section 19 of the Divorce Act itself we find the words "consanguinity whether natural or legal." These words seem to refer to relationship by adoption, an idea unknown to the law of England; they therefore tend to negative the view that the language of the section is the language of the English law.