Good news you can now marry your mother in law

WHAT would Les Dawson have said? The European Court of Human Rights has held that one may marry one’s mother (actually father)-in-law, thereby removing the remnants of the ban imposed by Henry VIII. The Strasbourg decision results from Article 12 of the Convention on Human Rights that provides a “right to marry and found a family”. Is there anyone left whom one may not wed, let alone not have sex with, nor have children by?

When “L” and “B”, L’s former daughter-in-law, attempted to give notice of marriage at Warrington Register Office, the superintendent registrar must have congratulated himself on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to demonstrate his knowledge of the law. The Marriage (Prohibited Degrees of Relationship) Act 1986 had pruned an extensive list of banned…