Marriages of convenience have occurred over the ages as far back as marriage has existed.
European royalty hardly ever married for love unless one is referring to love of power and wealth.
A marriage certificate obtained in one country is usually honoured in most other countries. Unless the Cayman Islands Immigration Department intends to review all marriages to people with the right to be Caymanian that occur outside of these three islands then their efforts will naturally be frustrated by the right to travel.
Of course one solution is to prohibit travel of any person with the right to be Caymanian of marriageable age or to negotiate marriage prevention treaties between the Cayman Islands and the rest of the world.
A local attorney suggested that marriage ceremonies between a person with the right to be Caymanian and a foreigner should have the onus put on them to show that it is not a marriage of convenience. Such a marriage is then to be deemed to be a marriage of convenience unless the couple wishing to marry can prove otherwise.
In other words guilty until proven innocent. I seem to recall that one of the fundamental rights of human beings is the right to marry and the right to live with one’s family.
Whether or not marrying a person with the right to be Caymanian leads to a similar right for the spouse is a matter for the local legislators. Cayman can retain the dubious status of being one of the few exceptions to the general rule that marrying a national will eventually result after suitable application to the same status being granted. A local marriage officer suggested a letter of indemnity that documents a statement by the two parties declaring that the marriage is not one of convenience. A good idea, if one could determine retrospectively that it was indeed not signed in good faith before the marriage ceremony. There is no doubt that marriages of convenience occur; however to presume that the Immigration Department is capable of determining accurately which marriages are of convenience by listening to gossip and innuendo without risking frustrating even one genuine union is not reasonable.
The above is especially true in a society such as this, where people are already calling the radio station volunteering their services as marriage police. People marry for various reasons most of which relate to some sort of convenience, whether it is to be with the one you love, provide a suitable milieu in which to have and raise a family, provide an economic union that would facilitate the best standard of living for the ensuing family and sometimes just to be able to have a lot of sex with one’s chosen partner and live together without offending one’s neighbours even in the absence of any offspring.
The only requirement of a marriage as far as the Immigration Department is concerned should be that no monetary gain was procured prior to the marriage and that the couple lives as man and wife in the same residence for a reasonable length of time.
People are free to marry anyone of any marriageable age, they are free to marry prisoners on a life sentence, and they are free to marry someone with HIV infection and even someone who is reputed to be homosexual.
There is a price a society pays when it is says that it is free and democratic; one of those penalties is that even when the vocal members of that society speak out in indignation against something or someone it does not mean automatic censure. Just 40 years ago it was illegal and abnormal and against the law of God for a black person to marry a white person. Mr. Barack Obama is a product of such a union.
Victor Look Loy
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