Spinster of this parish
A spinster?! ME! A spinster!
We went to the register office yesterday morning to give notice of our intentions to marry and while TOH gets the cool status of 'bachelor' I have to go down in the records as 'spinster'! Outrageous. What's wrong with being known as 'single'?
The registrar was very nice and went through some legal stuff like making sure we were who we said we were and that we hadn't been married before. She agreed about the spinster thing but said the marriage laws have not been updated since 1837 when they were created.
To ensure that we knew each other and that it wasn't a sham marriage she asked us some probing questions like what the other half's full name was and how old they are, a fail safe proceedure and no mistake!
And to prevent perjury and bigamy she also asked us if we knew whether the other person had ever used any other names or had been married before. I have to admit, while I said he hadn't I really only have TOH's word on the matter. For all I know I could be the innocent victim of a highly elaborate and pointless scam (there's not much in it for him if he was tricking me).
She was also surprised when I pointed out that on the wall where these notices were displayed there were at least six British women marrying Vietnamese men, all of whom were registered at the same address (the women and men).
Not casting any aspersions over this coincidence but if the Home Office was serious about preventing sham marriages, asking how old each other are is probably not the watertight test it's looking for.
We went to the register office yesterday morning to give notice of our intentions to marry and while TOH gets the cool status of 'bachelor' I have to go down in the records as 'spinster'! Outrageous. What's wrong with being known as 'single'?
The registrar was very nice and went through some legal stuff like making sure we were who we said we were and that we hadn't been married before. She agreed about the spinster thing but said the marriage laws have not been updated since 1837 when they were created.
To ensure that we knew each other and that it wasn't a sham marriage she asked us some probing questions like what the other half's full name was and how old they are, a fail safe proceedure and no mistake!
And to prevent perjury and bigamy she also asked us if we knew whether the other person had ever used any other names or had been married before. I have to admit, while I said he hadn't I really only have TOH's word on the matter. For all I know I could be the innocent victim of a highly elaborate and pointless scam (there's not much in it for him if he was tricking me).
She was also surprised when I pointed out that on the wall where these notices were displayed there were at least six British women marrying Vietnamese men, all of whom were registered at the same address (the women and men).
Not casting any aspersions over this coincidence but if the Home Office was serious about preventing sham marriages, asking how old each other are is probably not the watertight test it's looking for.
posted by The WyeBird @ 3:10 pm
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