Of all the survivals of Lusitanian law in the Indian Union, none is more visible in daily life than the way a Goan couple gets married. Across the rest of India a marriage is a religious or personal-law event that the State may afterwards register; in Goa, the marriage is the act done before the Civil Registrar, and the ceremony in church or temple is at most a parallel formality. This chapter sets out the procedure for civil marriage as it actually operates — from the first declaration before the Conservator, through the publication of editais (banns), the running of objections, to solemnisation and signature in the marriage register — and explains why the Supreme Court in Jose Paulo Coutinho v. Maria Luiza Valentina Pereira (2019) called Goa a “shining example” of a working uniform civil code.
The statutory framework: which laws govern the procedure
The procedure for civil marriage in Goa is not found in a single modern statute but in a layered body of Portuguese-era law continued in force by Section 5 of the Goa, Daman and Diu (Administration) Act, 1962. The foundational instrument is the Lei da Familia — the Law of Marriage promulgated by Decree of 1910 following the establishment of the First Portuguese Republic — read with the Code of Civil Registration (originally the Código do Registo Civil of 1911, extended to Portuguese India in 1912). It is these instruments, rather than the original 1867 Portuguese Civil Code as enacted, that supply the operative rules of procedure, because the 1910 reforms secularised marriage and removed it from the exclusive control of the Church.
The defining proposition is that marriage in Goa is a civil contract. The Law of Marriage treats it as a contract between two persons of different sex entered into before a public officer for the purpose of legitimately constituting a family. Because it is a contract perfected before the State, the act of the Civil Registrar is constitutive, not merely evidentiary — a sharp contrast with the registration regimes that operate elsewhere in India, where a Hindu or special marriage exists in law before any entry is made. For the constitutive character of the civil-registry entry generally, see Registration of Marriages in the Civil Registry.
Marriage as a civil contract, not a sacrament
The single most important conceptual point for an examinee is that, in Goa, the religious ceremony and the civil marriage are distinct juridical events. A Catholic canonical wedding, a Hindu ceremony or a Muslim nikah has no civil effect of its own unless and until the marriage is constituted or transcribed in the civil registry. The 1910 law made performance before the Office of Civil Registration compulsory and, for the first time in the territory, permitted divorce — a radical secularisation that the Church resisted and that was partly reversed for Catholics by the Concordat of 1940 and the resulting Decree No. 35461 of 1946, discussed below.
This civil-contract character explains a series of consequences that flow automatically from the marriage and that students must connect to the procedure: the default communion of assets between the spouses, the requirement of joint consent for alienation of immovable common property, and the equal division of common assets on divorce or death. The procedure is therefore not an empty formality — the moment of signature before the Registrar is the moment a comprehensive property regime attaches to the couple.
Stage I: the declaration of intended marriage before the Civil Registrar
The procedure runs in two stages. Stage I is the declaration of marriage (the declaração para casamento), made jointly by the intending spouses before the Civil Registrar (the Conservator) of the area where one of them is domiciled. The personal presence of both the bridegroom and the bride is necessary; the declaration cannot be made by a single party or by a power of attorney as of right. Where the bride is below the age of twenty-one, the presence and consent of the parents (or guardian) is additionally required, parental consent being a substantive condition and not a mere courtesy.
At this stage the parties produce the documents that establish their capacity to marry. These typically include the birth certificates of both parties (to prove age and identity), and a residence or domicile certificate showing continuous residence within the jurisdiction for a stipulated period — in practice not less than the six months immediately preceding the declaration. The Registrar examines these to confirm the absence of impediments: that the parties are of marriageable age (eighteen for the bridegroom, with the lower threshold for the bride attracting the parental-consent rule), are not within the prohibited degrees of relationship, and are not bound by a subsisting marriage. Capacity is judged against the conditions established by the Law of Marriage; the universality of these conditions, regardless of the religion of the parties, is the theme developed in Universal Application of the Code.
Publication of the edital (banns) and the statutory notice period
Between Stage I and Stage II the law interposes a mandatory period of publicity. On receiving the declaration the Civil Registrar affixes a public notice — the edital (the functional equivalent of the banns of marriage in English ecclesiastical practice) — at the registry office, announcing the intended marriage and inviting any person to come forward with an objection. The statutory waiting period is of fifteen days, which must include two Sundays, so that the announcement falls on the days when the public is most likely to see it. This interval is commonly described as the edital period.
The function of the edital is protective and anti-clandestine: it gives third parties — a prior spouse, a parent of a minor, a person aware of a prohibited relationship — the opportunity to assert an impediment before the marriage is constituted. The publicity requirement reflects the same policy that the Supreme Court emphasised, in a different statutory context, in Seema v. Ashwani Kumar, (2006) 2 SCC 578, where compulsory registration of marriages was directed throughout India precisely because public recording of marriages helps prevent child marriages, bigamy and the denial of conjugal rights. In Goa, that protective publicity is built into the very formation of the marriage rather than bolted on afterwards.
Objections and impediments during the notice period
If, during the running of the edital, a person lodges an objection, the marriage cannot proceed until the objection is disposed of. The Registrar examines whether the alleged impediment is one recognised by the Law of Marriage. Impediments are classified, in the civilian tradition the Code inherits, into diriment impediments (which prevent the marriage from coming into existence at all — for example, an existing undissolved marriage, want of age, or a prohibited degree of consanguinity or affinity) and impedient or merely prohibitive impediments (which the law disapproves but which do not nullify a marriage that is nonetheless celebrated). A valid diriment objection halts the procedure; a frivolous or unproven objection is rejected and the marriage proceeds.
Where no objection is received within the notice period, or any objection raised has been overruled, the parties become entitled to have the marriage solemnised. The structure mirrors the objection procedure familiar from Section 7 of the Special Marriage Act, 1954 elsewhere in India — a deliberate borrowing of the European civil-registry model that the 1954 Act itself drew upon — but in Goa it operates as the general law applicable to all communities rather than as an opt-in secular alternative.
Stage II: solemnisation and signature in the marriage register
Stage II is the act of marriage itself. After the edital period has run without a sustained objection, the parties appear again before the Civil Registrar, who reads over the relevant provisions, asks each party whether they take the other in marriage, and on receiving their mutual declaration of consent pronounces them married. The marriage is then entered in the marriage register and signed by the spouses, by the witnesses and by the Registrar. The signature in the register is the constitutive moment: from that instant the parties are husband and wife in civil law and the matrimonial property regime attaches.
The civil character of this act is what distinguishes Goa from the rest of the country. As the Supreme Court observed in Jose Paulo Coutinho v. Maria Luiza Valentina Pereira (Civil Appeal No. 7378 of 2010, decided 13 September 2019), Goa is “a shining example of an Indian State which has a uniform civil code applicable to all, regardless of religion except while protecting certain limited rights” — a uniformity that begins precisely with this common procedure of marriage before the Registrar. While Coutinho was directly concerned with succession, the Bench (Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose, JJ.) treated the marriage and property regime constituted by the civil procedure as the foundation of the Goan domicile’s distinctive legal status.
The property regime chosen (or imposed) at the point of marriage
The procedure is the occasion at which the couple’s matrimonial property regime is fixed, and this is what makes the civil-marriage step so consequential. In the absence of any contrary stipulation, the marriage attracts the default regime of the communion of assets (comunhão de bens): all property, whether brought into the marriage, inherited, or acquired before or after it, falls into a common pool owned equally by the spouses, and on dissolution by divorce or death each is entitled to one half. This is the regime that governs the overwhelming majority of Goan marriages.
If the parties wish to depart from the default, they must do so before the marriage is solemnised, by executing and registering an antenuptial convention (the marriage contract or convenção antenupcial) before the Civil Registrar. Through such a convention the couple may opt for total separation of assets, for separation of pre-marital property with communion of post-marital acquisitions, or for the older dotal regime, under which a dowry constituted from the bride’s family property is administered by the husband but must be restored on dissolution of the marriage. Because the antenuptial convention must precede the marriage, the procedural sequence — declaration, then any contract, then solemnisation — is itself legally significant. These regimes are examined in detail in Effects of Marriage on Person and Property.
Catholic canonical marriage and the Decree of 1946
One important procedural variation concerns Roman Catholics. Following the Concordat of 1940 between Portugal and the Holy See, Decree No. 35461 of 1946 allowed Catholics to celebrate a canonical marriage before Church authorities, which would then be transcribed into the civil register and so acquire full civil effect, provided a no-objection certificate had first been obtained from the civil registration officer. In substance the couple still passes through the civil edital machinery, but the act of marriage takes place in church rather than before the Registrar, and is afterwards transcribed.
The price of this concession was steep. Article 19 of Decree No. 35461 vested exclusive jurisdiction over the validity of such canonical marriages in the ecclesiastical (Church) tribunals, so that Catholics married canonically could not obtain a civil divorce and could only seek annulment from the Patriarchal Tribunal, whose decree the civil court would then merely execute by directing cancellation of the registry entry. The Supreme Court had already cast doubt on giving civil effect to purely ecclesiastical annulments in Molly Joseph v. George Sebastian, (1996) 6 SCC 337, holding that once a marriage is solemnised under a statute, an ecclesiastical tribunal cannot dissolve it so as to bind the civil courts.
Fernandes v. State of Goa: striking down the ecclesiastical monopoly
The constitutional infirmity in Article 19 of the 1946 Decree was finally addressed by the Bombay High Court at its Goa Bench in Fernandes v. State of Goa (Writ Petition No. 351 of 2017), decided on 19 October 2019 by a Division Bench of R. D. Dhanuka and Prithviraj K. Chavan, JJ. The Court struck down Article 19 as unconstitutional in so far as it ousted the High Court’s power of judicial review and reduced the civil court to a “post office” that simply executed ecclesiastical annulment decrees without any independent scrutiny.
The significance of Fernandes for the procedure of civil marriage is twofold. First, it confirms that the civil-registry marriage — not the ecclesiastical sacrament — is the marriage that the secular legal order recognises and over which the constitutional courts retain ultimate supervisory jurisdiction. Second, it reasserts the primacy of the civil procedure against any parallel religious adjudication, reinforcing the uniform-code character that Coutinho had praised. After Fernandes, a canonical annulment can no longer automatically rewrite the civil marriage register; the civil court must apply its own mind before the registry entry is disturbed.
Transcription of marriages celebrated outside the territory
The procedure also accommodates marriages of Goan domiciles celebrated outside Goa. A marriage validly contracted abroad or elsewhere in India by persons domiciled in Goa may be brought onto the Goan civil register by a process of transcription, on production of the foreign or out-of-State marriage certificate and proof of the parties’ domicile. Transcription is important precisely because the Goan property regime and the law of succession follow the domicile: once a Goan-domiciled couple’s marriage is transcribed, the communion-of-assets regime and the Code’s succession rules attach to all their property wherever situated.
This is the practical link to Coutinho. There the Supreme Court held that the Portuguese Civil Code governs succession to the property of a Goan domicile whether the property lies within Goa or outside it, and that Section 5 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 does not displace this special and local law. The civil-marriage procedure, by fixing both the marital status and the property regime of the Goan domicile, is therefore the gateway through which the wider consequences traced in Universal Application come to operate across the whole of India.
How the Goan procedure compares with the Special Marriage Act, 1954
Examiners frequently ask candidates to contrast the Goan civil-marriage procedure with the Special Marriage Act, 1954, because the resemblance is close and the differences are instructive. Both regimes require a notice or declaration before a designated officer (the Marriage Officer under the 1954 Act, the Civil Registrar in Goa), both interpose a publicity-and-objection period (thirty days’ notice under Section 6 and objections under Section 7 of the 1954 Act; the fifteen-day, two-Sunday edital in Goa), and both treat the marriage as a secular civil act completed by signature before the officer and witnesses.
The decisive difference is one of generality. The Special Marriage Act is an optional, secular alternative that couples elsewhere in India may choose instead of their personal law, and choosing it can carry consequences such as severance from the joint Hindu family under Section 19. In Goa, by contrast, the civil procedure is not an option but the general law of marriage for everyone, with the communion-of-assets property regime attaching by default. The 1954 Act is, in a sense, the rest of India’s partial imitation of what Goa has applied universally since 1910 — a point the Supreme Court drew out when it held Goa up as a model under Article 44 in Coutinho.
Documents, eligibility and practical conditions
Pulling the practical requirements together, an intending couple in Goa must satisfy the following before the marriage can be solemnised: both parties must be of marriageable age (eighteen for the male party, with the parental-consent requirement triggered where the bride is below twenty-one); neither may be within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity or affinity; neither may have a subsisting valid marriage; and the parties must establish domicile or residence within the jurisdiction, conventionally for the six months immediately preceding the declaration. The documentary proof comprises the birth certificates of both parties, the residence or domicile certificate, and, where applicable, the parents’ consent and proof of dissolution of any prior marriage.
Procedurally, the parties make the Stage I declaration in person; the Registrar publishes the edital for fifteen days including two Sundays; any objection is heard and disposed of; and, absent a valid impediment, the parties return for Stage II, declare their consent, and sign the marriage register together with two witnesses and the Registrar. A couple wishing to vary the property regime must execute and register the antenuptial convention before this final step. The completed register entry is conclusive proof of the marriage and the foundation of all the civil consequences that follow.
Exam pointers and common errors
Candidates lose marks by treating Goan marriage law as identical to the rest of India’s. Remember that in Goa the civil act is constitutive, not evidentiary: there is no marriage in civil law until the register is signed (or, for transcribed canonical marriages, until transcription). Be precise about the edital — fifteen days including two Sundays, not thirty days, and certainly not the thirty-day notice of the Special Marriage Act, which is a separate statute. Distinguish the two stages clearly: declaration (Stage I) and the act of marriage (Stage II), with publicity and objections in between.
On case law, anchor three authorities: Jose Paulo Coutinho v. Maria Luiza Valentina Pereira (2019) for the “shining example” of a uniform civil code and the territorial reach of the Code over a Goan domicile’s succession; Fernandes v. State of Goa (2019) for the striking down of Article 19 of Decree 35461/1946 and the primacy of secular judicial review over ecclesiastical annulment; and Molly Joseph v. George Sebastian, (1996) 6 SCC 337, for the broader principle that an ecclesiastical tribunal cannot dissolve a statutory marriage. Finally, do not forget the property dimension: the procedure is the point at which the communion-of-assets default attaches and the only point at which a couple may contract out of it through an antenuptial convention. For the wider scheme see the hub at Portuguese Civil Code (Goa) notes and the companion chapter on Marriage under the PCC and its Forms.
Frequently asked questions
Is a marriage in Goa a religious ceremony or a civil act?
In civil law it is a civil contract. The marriage that the secular legal order recognises is the act done before the Civil Registrar and entered in the marriage register, not the religious ceremony. A Hindu, Muslim or Catholic ceremony has civil effect only when the marriage is constituted before, or transcribed into, the civil registry. Catholics may marry canonically and have the marriage transcribed under Decree No. 35461 of 1946, but the civil register remains the operative record.
What is the edital period and how long is it?
The edital is the public notice of intended marriage that the Civil Registrar affixes after the Stage I declaration, the civilian equivalent of the banns of marriage. It runs for fifteen days, which must include two Sundays, so that the announcement reaches the public. During this period any person may lodge an objection asserting an impediment, and the marriage cannot be solemnised until the notice has run and any objection has been disposed of.
What are the two stages of the Goan civil-marriage procedure?
Stage I is the joint declaration of marriage before the Civil Registrar, where the parties appear in person, produce birth and residence certificates, and (if the bride is under twenty-one) obtain parental consent. After the fifteen-day edital with two Sundays and disposal of any objection, Stage II is the act of marriage: the parties declare their consent before the Registrar and sign the marriage register with two witnesses, which constitutes the marriage.
What property regime applies once the marriage is registered?
By default the regime of communion of assets applies: all property, whether brought in, inherited, or acquired before or after marriage, is held in common and divided equally on divorce or death. Couples who wish to opt out — for total separation of assets or the older dotal regime — must execute and register an antenuptial convention before the marriage is solemnised, which is why the procedural sequence is itself legally important.
What did the Supreme Court hold in Jose Paulo Coutinho v. Maria Luiza Valentina Pereira (2019)?
The Supreme Court held that the Portuguese Civil Code governs succession to the property of a Goan domicile whether the property is situated within Goa or outside it, as a special and local law not displaced by Section 5 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925. The Bench also praised Goa as “a shining example of an Indian State which has a uniform civil code applicable to all, regardless of religion,” while noting that Article 44 of the Constitution remains unimplemented nationally.
Can a Catholic in Goa obtain a civil divorce, and what did Fernandes v. State of Goa decide?
Decree No. 35461 of 1946 originally barred Catholics married canonically from civil divorce, channelling them to ecclesiastical annulment whose decree the civil court merely executed. In Fernandes v. State of Goa (Writ Petition No. 351 of 2017, decided 19 October 2019), the Bombay High Court at Goa struck down Article 19 of that Decree as unconstitutional for ousting judicial review, holding that the civil court cannot act as a mere “post office” for ecclesiastical decrees. This reasserted the primacy of the secular civil marriage and the courts’ supervisory jurisdiction.