Did You Know, 301 Day Wait For Filipina

[Jollygoodfellow]

Interesting law. I have seen posted on this forum and others about getting a Filipina an annulment so a foreigner can marry but I bet most did not know of this law. 

 

Philippines women’s group wants ‘premature marriage’ stricken off list of offences

 

A party-list group is calling for the removal of a law that punishes widowed women who marry within 301 days of losing their husbands with imprisonment.

Representatives Emmi De Jesus and Luzviminda Ilagan of the woman’s Gabriela Partylist said a Philippine law penalises women for “premature marriage” is outdated and discriminatory.

Article 351 of the country’s revised Penal Code prescribes that: “Any widow who shall marry within 301 days from the death of her husband or having delivered if she shall have been pregnant at the time of his death, shall be punished by arrests mayor [one month and one day to six months imprisonment] and a fine not exceeding P500 [Dhs 40.77].

“The same penalties shall be imposed upon any woman who marriage shall have been annulled or dissolved, if she shall marry before her delivery or before the expiration of the period of three hundred and one day after the legal separation,” the law said.

 

Framers of the penal code had argued that the marriage prohibition was to avoid confusion with regards to who had fathered the child as the infant might have been conceived during the previous marriage but born during the subsequent marriage.

But de Jesus and Ilagan pointed out that the law is already outdated because technologies are now available to who had fathered the child whose paternity is in question.

“The prohibition all the more outdated, irrelevant and unnecessary,” the lawmakers said.

De Jesus and Ilagan insisted that the country’s law protecting the rights of women, the “Magna Carta of Women.” provides that: “Government should take appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women, especially on marriage and family relations.”

Due to this, De Jesus and Ilagan wrote a measure, House Bill “An Act repealing the crime of premature marriages under Article 351 of Republic Act No. 3815, otherwise known as the Revised Penal Code.”

The authors likewise argued that the provisions of the Revised Penal Code is discriminatory to women and favours the male gender because it does not penalise the man she marries prematurely.

“No similar prohibition is imposed on the widower or the man who ‘prematurely’ marries another after the death of his wife,,” the Gabriela lawmakers pointed out.

Besides, de Jesus and Ilagan pointed out, a full title of the Family Code of the Philippines is already devoted to Paternity and Filiation (Title VI of the Family Code of the Philippines) and a chapter within the said title tackles Proof of Filiation.

“Not only is Art. 351 outdated that needed to be erased from our statutes, but because it perpetuates discrimination against those women subjected to the prohibition by unduly curtailing their right to marry when no other legal barrier exists other than the declared prohibition,” the authors concluded.

 

http://gulfnews.com/news/world/philippines/philippines-women-s-group-wants-premature-marriage-stricken-off-list-of-offences-1.1410055

 

[scott h]

It is very out of date, but can really see the need for it in the past given the convoluted inheritance laws here in the Philippines.