Arya Marriage Validation Act, 1937

The Arya Marriage Validation Act, 1937 (Act XIX of 1937) removes legal doubt about marriages between followers of the Arya Samaj, a Hindu reform movement. Section 1 states the Act extends to the whole of Pakistan and also applies to Pakistani citizens wherever they are (this extension wording was substituted by a 1960 law-reform ordinance, as shown by the footnote).

Section 2, the operative section, provides that a marriage between two people who were Arya Samajists at the time of marriage is not invalid — and is never to be treated as having been invalid — merely because the parties belonged to different castes or sub-castes of Hindus, or because either party had, before the marriage, belonged to a religion other than Hinduism. This overrides any contrary rule of Hindu law, usage, or custom, and applies to marriages contracted either before or after the Act came into force.

In short, this is a narrow validating statute: it protects inter-caste and inter-religious-background marriages within the Arya Samaj community from being challenged on caste or prior-religion grounds. It does not otherwise regulate marriage procedure, registration, or divorce.

Given its age (1937) and the amendment noted in the extract, readers should verify current wording against the official gazette text if relying on it for a specific case.