Marriage in Australia: A timeline of how love and law have changed in 130 years

Updated

Marriage is at the same time an intensely personal experience and a social institution manipulated by church and state.

It's fallen in and out of favour, and been hotly debated by our greatest minds, who've likened it to prison, prostitution and heaven. But through it all, couples just keep on getting married.

RN's Earshot looks back on some key events in the history of marriage in Australia, and gets to know a few people who have been through it.

For more, listen to part one and part two of the radio documentary, The Ring Cycle.

Married women can own property

June 10, 1884

Victoria becomes the first Australian colony to pass legislation allowing married women the right to own property, in the wake of the UK Parliament passing the Married Women's Property Act.

Laws control Aboriginal marriage

June 1, 1918

The Aboriginals Ordinance 1918 restricts marriage between Indigenous women and non-Indigenous men in the Northern Territory.

There were also state laws in place to control marriage for Indigenous Australians.

Marriage age raised

November 16, 1942

Tasmania passes a law to raise the minimum age of marriage from 12 for women and 14 for men to 16 and 18 respectively.

Other states follow.

Eileen and Max marry

June 2, 1950

Eileen's first husband, Bert, was killed in a car accident only a few years after they had married.

"I met my second husband Max at a church social and, oh, I was struck," says Eileen.

"I was with a girlfriend and we both eyed him off. Love at first sight, it really was.

"We had a quiet wedding because Mum thought it was a bit quick. I hadn't long been widowed and what with having a little baby ...

"Anyway, we only had our actual family and then we went off to Richmond for a five-day honeymoon."

Eileen and Max divorced after 12 years, but reconnected later in life.

Australia's first Marriage Act

November 9, 1961

The Marriage Act 1961 makes marriage law uniform across the country and sets the minimum marriageable age as 18.

It does not, however, formalise a definition of marriage.

Eileen marries Harold

November 28, 1964

Eileen was struggling to support two children on her own when Harold came into her life.

They had a long and steady marriage and enjoyed ballroom dancing.

"Harold was a Mason, and Dad was a Mason, and so he thought Harold was lovely," Eileen says of her third husband.

"And Mum thought he was lovely too because he was a butcher, and he kept them in plenty of meat.

"He was a nice man, gentle and caring. He was lonely because he'd lost his wife. He didn't have a home, but he had a good job.

"And I was looking for security, so I just went along with it."

'Marriage bar' abolished

November 18, 1966

The bar on employment of married women in the Commonwealth Public Service is abolished.

Introduced at the beginning of the 1900s, the "marriage bar" was intended to keep women from "stealing" men's jobs and also to boost the birth rate. It meant many women kept their marriages a secret.

The Female Eunuch published

October 24, 1970

The Female Eunuch, by Germaine Greer, argued that the limitations placed on women within the nuclear family cut them off from their sexuality and vigour.

It was a huge hit with the growing feminist movement.

"The wedding is the chief ceremony of the middle-class mythology, and it functions as the official entrée of the spouses to their middle-class status. This is the real meaning of saving up to get married."

First civil celebrant appointed

July 19, 1973

Civil celebrancy is formally established in Australia by the Commonwealth Attorney General, Lionel Murphy, despite widespread opposition.

Murphy appoints a 26-year-old woman, Lois D'Arcy, as the first independent civil marriage celebrant.

No-fault divorce

June 12, 1975

The Family Law Act 1975 establishes the principle of no-fault divorce, with 12 months separation being sufficient to prove breakdown of the marriage (prior to that, some form of wrongdoing by either party had to be proved). In the wake of the act, the divorce rate temporarily skyrockets.

Leslie and Keith marry

March 5, 1989

Leslie and Keith met in 1979, lived together for a decade and had two children before overcoming their initial scepticism and deciding to get married.

"To me it was about getting our larger family together," Keith says.

"Because we'd been together for 10 years, we'd tried to get both our families together in the one place, but it doesn't work. People don't come for parties or events, they come for weddings and funerals.

"I don't remember any of our friends giving us a hard time about getting married — none of us had much money, we were all starting out.

"I think a free meal and a chance to wear their good floral shirt was much appreciated by a lot of our friends."

Netherlands legalises same-sex marriage

April 1, 2001

The Netherlands becomes the first country to extend marriage laws to include same-sex couples.

Marriage Act amended

August 16, 2004

Under prime minister John Howard, the Marriage Act is amended to add the following definition:

"Marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.

"Certain unions are not marriages.

"A union solemnised in a foreign country between: a man and another man; or a woman and another woman; must not be recognised as a marriage in Australia."

De facto status

March 1, 2009

De facto relationships are granted similar rights to married couples.

In some states a couple needs to have lived together for a minimum period before they can claim de facto status.

Arun and Padma marry

December 9, 2010

Arun and Padma both grew up in the Tamil community in southern India before settling in Australia. They had an arranged marriage.

"It's been harder than I expected, because the first time I spent more than 10 minutes with him was at the wedding ceremony, which is quite a long procedure," Padma says.

"But after that I was married to him and there was no going back, and we came over here and that's when we started discovering each other.

"But love does come. Arun does do a lot of compromising and I know that, and I did learn to love him, so I guess it just comes."

Brett and Stuart marry in Scotland

July 9, 2015

Stuart proposed at his 30th birthday celebrations in Italy, and then the Australian couple married in Scotland, with Stuart wearing a kilt. Unlike Australia, Scotland allows gay marriage.

"I was really floored when Stuart asked me to marry him," Brett says.

"I didn't know what to say, because I thought: 'Is this for real?' And then he had a ring and everything. I just cried and couldn't speak.

"When you stand up in front of all your friends and family and say I love you and I'm yours forever, you have to stand by that.

"It's much harder just to ruin it. You need to say sorry if you've made a mistake. You can't just walk out."

Push for same-sex marriage plebiscite defeated

November 1, 2016

In November, the Australian government's push for a plebiscite on same-sex marriage is defeated in the Senate.

Same-sex marriage is now legal, either nationally or in some parts of the country, in Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, France, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the UK, the US and Uruguay

Kara and Gareth get hitched

January 14, 2017

Kara and Gareth married in Sydney, first at the registry office and then unofficially at a party in front of 100 friends.

"For us it was about making that public commitment to each other," says Kara.

"But we didn't want a celebrant to say the legal requirements that a celebrant has to say which includes that a marriage is between a man and a woman.

"We didn't want that said at our wedding so we had the legal wedding two days earlier in private."

Postal plebiscite

August 9, 2017

The Federal Government's bid to hold a plebiscite on whether or not to legalise same-sex marriage is blocked by the Senate.

In doing so, the Government announces that it will gauge public sentiment on same-sex marriage via a voluntary postal plebiscite.

Senator Penny Wong calls the moves to ask Australians to vote a damaging and expensive stunt to avoid having Parliament decide on allowing same-sex marriage.

"You talk about unifying moments? It is not a unifying moment. It is exposing our children to that kind of hatred," she says.

Malcolm Turnbull says the postal vote will cost Australian taxpayers $122 million, and would be organised by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Results announced for the postal vote on same-sex marriage

November 15, 2017

Australians were asked to answer yes or no to the question: 'Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?'

12.7 million postal votes were submitted with 61.6 per cent voting Yes.

7.82 million voted Yes, and 4.87 million people responded No.

The strongest vote in favour of gay marriage was in the ACT, followed by Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia.

New South Wales had the lowest Yes vote at 58 per cent.

Bill passes House of Representatives

December 8, 2017

Federal parliament passes a bill in which the definition of marriage is changed to 'the union of two people to the exclusion of all others', replacing the previous definition that marriage was between a man and a woman.

There is loud applause in the chamber when the vote is read out.

Some same-sex marriage campaigners in the gallery break out into an impromptu rendition of 'I am, you are Australian' with some politicians joining in.

Topics: marriage, family-and-children, community-and-society, history, australia

First posted