Marriage Registration In Thailand And The USA
Marriage Registration between foreigners is an interesting issue in the context of Thai family law. The following article briefly summarizes a few of the interesting legal peculiarities that can arise in the context of marriage registration in Thailand.
For those readers who are familiar with the English "Common Law" system, the idea of marriage registration is somewhat difficult to fully grasp at first glance. However, from the standpoint of family law there are many similarities between Thailand's "civil law" system and a "common law" system such as the US. Although, a notable dissimilarity between the Thai "civil law" system and the English "common law" system is the absence of an notion of "common law marriage". In countries such as the United States there are jurisdictions which recognize "common law marriage". A "common law marriage" is basically a creation of the Court whereby a judge (or panel of judges) finds that a couple is legally married even though the parties to the "marriage" took no affirmative steps to legalize their union.
In Thailand, in order for a marriage to be considered legal both parties must appear before a civil registrar and register their marriage. As so-called "common law marriage" is not generally recognized in the Kingdom of Thailand, even a couple that openly cohabits for a substantial period of time will probably be found to be legally unmarried. Further, as the doctrine of equity is basically absent in Thailand's jurisprudence, there is often no recourse for either party in an unregistered marriage. Therefore, regardless of the fact that a couple has had a marriage ceremony and been accepted as married by the community, the Court is unlikely to grant either party any type of compensation should the unregistered marriage dissolve as the Court would likely not recognize the existence of a legal marriage in the first place.
These notions are quite significant for those foreign nationals wishing to get married in Thailand. For instance, if a couple comes to Thailand and conducts a marriage ceremony with all customary solemnization, the marriage may still be considered unregistered if the couple does not actually finalize a marriage registration. This is notable for those couples from other countries because failure to actually register a marriage could result in the couple's home country, or countries, not recognizing the marriage.
Of probable interest to bi-bnational couples who are not Thai is the difficulty of registering a divorce in the Kingdom of Thailand if the marriage is legally registered, but later dissolves. In Thailand, it may be rather difficult to find a Court that will take jurisdiction to grant a divorce if neither party to the marriage is registered on a Tambien Baan (House Registration) in Thailand, or if one of the foreign parties refuses to make themselves available for personal service of process in Thailand. For all of the aforementioned reasons, those foreign national's wishing to get married in Thailand ought to seek legal counsel prior to marriage in an effort to avoid possible legal difficulties down the road.
For information related to US Immigrastion from Thailand please see: US Marriage Visa or US Visa Thailand.
Tags: K1 Visa, Marriage Registration, US Fiance Visa, US MArriage Visa