The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) held a symposium on Monday to discuss amendments to laws concerning the conditions for marriage. At the meeting, a decision was made to transform the nation's current "ceremonial wedding" system into a "registered wedding" system.
A "ceremonial wedding" is defined as a wedding with a public ceremony and at least two official witnesses. To avoid arguments over the practicality of such a law, it was also decided that the law will not be retroactive.
Ceremonial marriages entered into prior to the implementation of a registered wedding system will still be legally recognized.
Because many people are concerned over Taiwanese businessmen going to China to take a second wife, the MOJ said that a registered wedding system would prevent someone from doing so. This would protect the interests of such a person's wife and children in Taiwan, as well as the third party in China.
A consensus was reached during the symposium that household registry staff would make a formal documentary examination when a marriage is registered. As long as documents presented conform with the conditions for a marriage, the marriage will be registered.
Officials said that if forged documents are presented, the case will be handled according to criminal laws regulating the forgery of official documents or bigamy, if a wedding has actually taken place.
The MOJ said that ceremonial marriages are legally binding in Taiwan even when not registered. It has therefore been possible for someone to take advantage of this legal loophole to obtain documentary proof of being single -- because the marriage is not registered in household registration documents -- and then go to China or a country in Southeast Asia to take a second wife.
Furthermore, divorces in Taiwan must be registered. Unless a matching system for registered marriages is implemented, a situation may arise where a couple who wants to get a divorce first has to go through the hassle and emotional stress of registering their marriage to be able to obtain the divorce.
Because there is a lack of standards regarding the recognition of ceremonial marriages, it is difficult to settle the status of relationships due to the difficulty of providing evidence when a dispute arises as to whether or not a public wedding ceremony has been held.
If, for example, only the family of one of the parties participates in the ceremony, all that is needed is that one of the parties claims that no public ceremony was held for problems to arise.
The MOJ said that even though earlier law amendments have defined registered marriages as binding, this way of doing things could easily cause people to think that registered marriages and ceremonial marriages are different things.
Officials said that ceremonial marriages have been the prevailing method since the promulgation of the Civil Code in 1931, but that it is now an outdated system.
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