Say the ratio out loud before you open Reasoning — recalling it unprompted is exactly what the exam pays for.
Why it matters
It is the case in which the two theories of capacity coincide, and it is therefore the best teaching case: it shows that the choice of theory is usually academic, and lets you identify the narrow class of cases in which it is not.
Facts
An English-domiciled man married his deceased wife's sister, who was German-domiciled, in Germany. The marriage was valid by German law and invalid by English law. The parties settled in England.
Held
The marriage was invalid on both theories — by the dual domicile theory, because the husband lacked capacity by English law, and by the intended matrimonial home theory, because the intended matrimonial home was English too. The principle stated is that there could be no valid contract unless each was competent to contract with the other.
Reasoning
Step one — run the dual domicile test. Capacity must exist by the law of the domicile of both parties at the time of the marriage. It did not exist by English law, and the husband was English domiciled.
Step two — run the intended matrimonial home test. Capacity is governed by the law of the country where the parties intended to establish, and did establish, their matrimonial home. They settled in England, so English law again.
Step three — draw the conclusion the case is cited for. Where both routes lead to the same system, the theoretical dispute does not matter. It matters only where the antenuptial domiciles differ and also differ from the intended home.
Exam use
It opens: Compare the dual domicile and intended matrimonial home theories — and this is the case to use to show what is actually at stake.
Use it as the fulcrum of the Indian discussion. In Parwatawwa v. Channawwa the Mysore High Court had to reconcile this case with Sottomayor v. De Barros, and said openly that it could not: the reasoning of Sir James Hannen P. on the third hearing of Sottomayor, where the husband's domicile turned out to be English and the marriage was upheld, cannot be reconciled with Sir Cresswell Cresswell's reasoning here. Faced with two irreconcilable English authorities, the Court chose a single governing law — the husband's domicile, if not the law of the intended matrimonial home — on the ground that dual domicile produces difficulties of such enormity that it may not be sound, and that a single law eliminates uncertainty.
Note the second life of this case in Module 4. The dicta about personal capacity in marriage cases were later pressed into service on contractual capacity, and this course records the complaint that the practice unsettled the whole subject; the better view for contracts is the objectively ascertained proper law.
It does not decide which theory is correct; its value is that it did not have to.