Note 636 — Chapter III · INDIVIDUALS

I cannot agree with the statement in its generality made by Westlake, I. p. 221:—"If, for instance, a man claimed as a national both by the United Kingdom and by another country should contract in the latter a marriage permitted by its laws to its subjects, an English Court would have to accept him as a married man." If this were correct, the marriage of a German who, without having given up his German citizenship, has become naturalised in Great Britain and has afterwards married his niece in Germany, would have to be recognised as legal by the English Courts. The correct solution seems to me to be that such marriage is legal in Germany, but not legal in England, because British law does not admit of marriage between uncle and niece. The case is different when a German who marries his niece in Germany, afterwards takes his domicile and becomes naturalised in England; in this case English Courts would have to recognise the marriage as legal because German law does not object to a marriage between uncle and niece, and because the marriage was concluded before the man took his domicile in England and became a British subject. See Foote, "Private International Jurisprudence," 3rd ed. (1904), p. 106, and the cases there cited.