160 
CHINESE MARRIAGES. 
illicit when the offspring of it are legitimate? To declare the 
union of a Chinese with his t’sip as being outside the pale of the 
law of the Colony would be to bastardise a large proportion of 
Chinese born in the Colony, and to deprive of all rights numbers 
of women, most of whom have devoted years of their lives to the 
men with whom they lived. 
Taking all the facts concerning the position of the t’sip into 
consideration Sir Benson Maxwell’s view that they were lawful 
wives was upheld on reasoning similar to his. Sir William Hynd- 
man-Jones summed the position up thus : — 
“ I have already said that in the diversity of opinion before 
us we must decide the question of monogamy or polygamy mainly 
by a consideration of the position which the law assigns to these 
women: and it appears to me that when you find that concubinage 
is not only tolerated by the law but recognised as a legal institu- 
tion, then concubinage ceases to be that which Western nations are 
accustomed to understand by that name and becomes polygamy.” 
The argument that polygamy imports equality amongst the 
wives was quite unsupported by authority and over-ruled. Indeed 
there was a clear English authority against it, the strange case of 
Christopher Bethell which may be considered with regard to this 
argument as well as with regard to the second main argument of 
the appellants namely that if the Chinese are polygamous then, as 
English Courts cannot recognise polygamy for any purposes, the 
Courts of this Colony cannot recognise their union at all. 
In dealing with Regina, vs Willans it was pointed out that up 
to the date of that case, 1858, all jurists put polygamy outside the 
pale of Christian nations. It is now necessary to see how the law 
in England had dealt with the matter between 1858 and the time 
when the Six Widows’ Case was being argued. 
It is obvious that in England a marriage might come before 
a matrimonial Court or might come before a Court which had 
merely to decide on rights arising out of the marriage. The 
English matrimonial Courts are purely Christian Courts and .their 
machinery and weapons are only intended for use in dealing with 
monogamous unions : it is obvious that they would withdraw from 
any consideration of a polygamous union as between the parties 
to it. Whether the rest of the English Courts would refuse to 
adjudicate in any circumstances upon the rights of the issue of a 
polygamous union is another matter and as yet unsettled. 
In 1866, in the case of Hvde v Hyde and Woodmansee, al- 
ready referred to, a Mormon husband filed a petition for dissolution 
of his marriage on the ground of adultery. Lord Penzance said 
that it was obvious that the matrimonial law of England was 
adapted to the Christian marriage and wholly inapplicable to poly- 
gamy. In rejecting the prayer of the petition on this ground he 
was careful to add at the end of his judgment these words “this 
Court does not profess to decide upon the rights of succession or 
Jour. Straits Branch 
