Marriage: Love and Law exhibition catalogue - Flipbook - Page 83
MODERN PROBLEMS,
REFORMS
For Attorney-General Garfield Barwick, the introduction of the Matrimonial
Causes Act 1959 and Marriage Act 1961 provided ‘a marriage code suitable
to present-day Australian needs … which, on the one hand, paid proper regard
to the antiquity and foundations of marriage as an institution, but … on the
other, resolved modern problems in a modern way.’
Leading Australian architectural photographer, John Gollings,
was a teenager during this time. Later describing himself
as a ‘sort of school photographer’, Gollings captured a celebratory
moment in a Haileybury College physics class. Teacher, Rod Home,
was sprayed with streamers and confetti as his students offered
advice such as ‘be patient’ and ‘never on Sunday’, to the soon-to-be
married man. They good-humouredly farewelled their teacher with
the adage, ‘so long sucker’.
The Menzies-led Government reformed divorce and marriage
laws under one federal system. It introduced the Matrimonial
Causes Act 1959 and the Marriage Act 1961. Marriageable age
was set at 16 for women and 18 for men. While it did not define
marriage, the Act required celebrants—civil and religious—
to state that ‘marriage, according to law in Australia, is the
union of a man and woman to the exclusion of all others,
voluntarily entered into for life’.
64 John Gollings
Teacher’s wedding (detail)
Gelatin silver photograph
1962
National Gallery of Australia,
NGA 93.844
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