Marriages Validation Act, 1892

The Marriages Validation Act, 1892 is a narrow historical fix for a specific problem under the Christian Marriage Act, 1872. Part VI of that 1872 Act only allowed marriage officiants to solemnize marriages where both parties were "Native Christians," but in practice, licensed officiants in various parts of the country had, through ignorance of the law, gone ahead and solemnized marriages where only one party was a Native Christian.

Section 3 retroactively validates all such marriages that had already taken place, treating them as legally valid as if both parties had been Native Christians — unless a court had already declared the marriage null and void, or one party had since validly remarried someone else. Section 4 makes the resulting marriage certificates and register-book records admissible as evidence, just as they would be for a marriage between two Native Christians.

Section 5 clarifies that references to the Christian Marriage Act, 1872 in this Act also apply to the equivalent provisions of the earlier (Indian) Marriage Act, 1865. Section 2 defines "Native Christian" by reference to the Christian Marriage Act's own definition.

Section 6 looks forward rather than backward: it warns that if a licensed officiant repeats this mistake after this Act's commencement — knowingly solemnizing a marriage under Part VI where one party is not actually a Christian — they will lose their licence and be liable to punishment under Section 73 of the Christian Marriage Act, 1872. This is a very old, narrow curative law, mainly of continuing relevance to questions about the validity of specific historical Christian marriages.