No. 497.
Mr. Bayard to Count Arco.
Department of State,
Washington, August 17,
1888.
Sir: Referring co my note of the 7th instant,
in which I returned to you certain documents (left by you with me
informally for my consideration), relative to the subject of the
validity of marriages in China between Chinese subjects and foreigners,
I now have the honor to inclose herewith a memorandum, which embodies
the views of the Department in relation to the matter.
Accept, etc.,
[Page 684]
[Inclosure.]
memorandum.
By the common law of Christendom, brought with them to this country
by its European colonists and built upon as the basis of its
political institutions, it is essential to marriage that it should
be a “voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the
exclusion of all others and it is by such marriages alone that the
family is constituted as an integer of the State. Such being the
case, it is not within the province of this Department to admit
extraterritorial validity for any foreign legislation which does not
give a similar definition, and make such exclusiveness an essential
element of marriage.
The Department, therefore, can not regard the status of citizens of
the United States, though resident in China, as in any way affected
by such legislation; and if by the Chinese law controlling marriage
such exclusiveness, as it is generally understood, is not imposed,
this Department can not take any steps towards recognizing as
marriages such sexual unions as are based on such polygamous law. At
the same time the Department will interpose no objection to police
regulations requiring notice to Chinese authorities of all
consensual marriages in China of citizens of the United States.
It is proper to add that the matrimonial status of a person who is a
citizen of and domiciled in a particular State of the American Union
is determinable by the law of such State and not by the laws of the
Federal Government of the United States.
Department of
State, August 17,
1888.
