Report No. 15
2. (a) Consolidation.- Under the present law, there are two statutes, one dealing with divorce and another with marriage. It would obviously be advantageous to have one comprehensive code dealing with both the branches of the law; and that is the view which has generally found favour with the community. The Parsi Marriage Act, 1936, the Special Marriage Act, 1954 and the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, deal, all of them, both with marriage and with matrimonial causes in one enactment, and that is the pattern which we have adopted.
(b) Title.- The proposed Act accordingly covers the ground traversed by the Indian Divorce Act, 1869, and the Indian Christian Marriage Act, 1872, and it has been termed the Christian Marriage and Matrimonial Causes Act. We have omitted the word "divorce" in the title, because the Act deals not only with divorce, but also with other kinds of actions such as nullity of marriage, restitution of conjugal rights and judicial separation. It will also be more satisfying to sentiment to avoid the word "divorce" in the title to a law on marriage.
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