CHINESE MARRIAGES. 
161 
legitimacy which it might be proper to accord to the issue of the 
polygamous unions nor upon the rights or obligations in relation 
to third persons which people living under the sanction of such 
unions may have created for themselves. All that is intended to 
be here decided is that as between each other they are not entitled 
to the remedies, the adjudication, or the relief of the matrimonial 
law of England.” 
The only case in which the rights of the offspring of a poly- 
gamous union have come before the English Courts is that of In 
re Bethelh Bethell v Hildvard, L.R. 28 Ch. Div. 220, but un- 
fortunately in that case counsel for the issue of the union made 
the admission that if the union was held to be polygamous there 
was an end to his client’s case. Again, as will be seen, it was not 
a ease of two members of a polygamous race marrying according 
to their own rites but of an English Christian making a union with 
a woman of a polygamous race. 
Christopher Bethell left England for the Cape of Good Hope 
in 1878 and never returned : he was killed in Bechuanaland fight- 
ing as a trooper in the mounted police in an encounter between 
his force and the Boers. In 1888 he had gone through a form of 
marriage at Mafeking according to the custom of the Baralong 
tribe with a girl named Teepoo by whom he had a child. As he 
was the legatee of property in England under his father’s will it 
became necessary for the English Court of Chancery to decide 
whether in the eyes of the law of England this child was legitimate, 
and an enquiry by the Chief Clerk of the Cburt was ordered. This 
Official certified that the Baralongs had no religion nor any re- 
ligious customs and that polygamy was allowed in that tribe. He 
also certified that Christopher Bethell’s domicile at the time of his 
marriage was English. 
The evidence before the Chief Clerk showed that amongst the 
Barolongs “each male is allowed one great wife and several con- 
cubines who have almost the same status in the home as the great 
or principal wife ” and the chief of the tribe in his evidence said 
“ there are those who have two, three or four wives but the first is 
the principal wife.” 
Mr. Justice Stirling, as he then was, agreed that upon this 
evidence the Chief Clerk was right in finding that the Barolongs 
were polygamous : and he held that the law of England could not 
recognise the union. All the miserable infant got was its costs 
out of the estate! This is not the place to discuss the judgment, 
though it may be observed that the learned Judge held himself 
bound by the decisions of matrimonial Courts!, in particular, by 
Hyde v. Hyde and Woodmansee, and that he made no mention of 
the saving clause already quoted at the end of the judgment in that 
case. , 
This case, however, was really the only one that the appellants 
in the Six Widows’ Case c-ould rely on as being in any way on all 
fours with the case which they were arguing. 
R. A. Soc., No. 83, 1021. 
