The recognition of a religious matrimony in the statute law of the Chilean state: an old pending issue

Abstract

The introduction of the civil marriage, as a result of the protestant rupture, presented the issue of the recognition of the religious matrimony on the part of the States. In the Indian Chile, the canonical marriage was the only valid marriage until 1884, when the first civil marriage act denied value to a marriage celebrated in accordance with a religious rite. Diverse attempts to obtain state recognition of the canonical marriage as well as the religious marriage, both reviewed in the paper, failed. The last attempt has been with the new civil marriage act, which article 20 has made an attempt to give legal recognition to religious marriage; nevertheless the regulation given by the act and the practices carried out by the civil registry have denied the religious marriage from having any civil value, which is, thus, a still pending issue.