The Hague Conference on Private International Law has drafted the Hague Convention on the

Celebration and Recognition of the Validity of Marriages 1978. Few Common Law States have
adopted it, Australia being the only exception, having amended the (Australian) Marriage Act
1961, in 1985 to give statutory force of convention relating to the recognition of marriage. The
Law commission in the United Kingdom recommended against its adoption. Indian has not
adopted it. The convention thus has little direct usefulness, some of its provisions are being
briefly indicated, however to show what can be called the international consensus of opinion on
the subject.
A contract to marriage differs fundamentally from a commercial contract, 1 since it creates a
status that affects the parties themselves and the society to which they belong. It is sui generis. It
is fulfilled on the solemnization of the marriage ceremony, and thereafter there is a change in the
law that governs the relationship between the parties. As far as matrimonial causes are concern
they are now generally taken to include petition for divorce, nullity of marriage, judicial
separation and presumption of death and dissolution of marriage as well as similar foreign
proceedings which may fall recognition here.

1
Under the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provision) Act 1970, s. 1, an agreement to marry does not have effect as a
contract.