Easy Tips on How to Get a Marriage Certificate in Nepal
Are you looking for tips on marriage registration to get the Marriage Certificate in Nepal? If you are, you have surely hit the right spot.
Do you know what a Marriage is?
Marriage can be defined in a lot of ways and the answer varies depending on whom you ask. The reason for this – Marriage is one of those few things that fall under all four categories of Legal, Emotional, Ritual, and Societal processes. However, since we are talking about marriage certificates here we will focus on how Law defines “The Marriage”.
1. What is Marriage according to law?
According to the Legal systems – Marriage is the process of establishing a formal relationship between two families in which the male/female of a family legally becomes a member of another family. In other words, this is the process that legally establishes the relationship between two families.
Further, The National Civil (Code) Act, 2017 (2074) defines, “Marriage deemed to be concluded: If a man and a woman accept each other as the husband and wife through any occasion, the ceremony, formal or other act, a marriage shall be deemed to have been concluded”.
What is a Marriage Certificate?
A marriage certificate is a document that proves the validity of that bond to the government. Taking this into consideration, a lot of you may have this question “Why do we need to make a Marriage Certificate?”
This is a valid concern as rather than the legal side of the marriage, Nepali and most of the eastern children are told more about the emotional. Ritual and social side of the marriage. This article is here just to answer these queries about this Certificate,
2. Why we need a Marriage Certificate?
Since this is the first thing we addressed in the passage above, let’s start by clarifying the need for this Certificate. These needs when listed out simple can be written as
- Reveal and confirm the relation of the said personnel.
- Prove the identity of the family members for property distribution when one needs to do so.
- to make the documents that include
- Birth certificate
- Citizenship of the children born from the couple
- Proof of relationship
However, these points are just from the legal perspective. If seen from the social and emotional perspective, the needs expand to include a lot more things like the feeling of security, deterrence against discrimination from society, and such. But since we are just covering things from the “legal/procedural” perspective. We will not be talking about these.
If you want to learn more about Marriage when talking from the Ritual side, we have an article for you right here.
When looking at Marriage and the need from this perspective, a question arises. What makes a person eligible to register for marriage?
3. Eligibility for registering a marriage Certificate
Not so surprisingly, there are criteria that one needs to follow when registering for marriage. These criteria are set by the government and can be changed whenever rules are modified. The criteria here are mentioned as per the National Civil (Code) Act, 2017 (2074) and Marriage Registration Rules, 2028 (1971). They are:
Legal Age
As per the National Civil (Code) Act, 2017 (2074) the legal age of marriage is 20 years.
Nepali Citizen
Now, along with being of legal age, one should also be a Nepali Citizen in order to register for a marriage certificate in Nepal as well.
While this is being said, it is not a necessity for both the bride and groom to have Nepali citizenship. Although the process will be a bit more complicated, this certificate can be registered as long as the citizenship of the Groom is presented.
Although technically, this certificate can be registered from the sole citizenship of the bride, this is not practiced in reality.
Documents
Having Nepali citizenship and being of legal age is not enough however as one needs to have a complete set of documents if one wants to register for marriage. The documents required are:
- citizenship of the married couple
- citizenship of the parents of the married couple
- proof of marriage (photos and witness)
- marriage invitation card if possible
- Migration certificate if the marriage certificate is registered anywhere besides the place of their native residence.
Side Note: Contrary to common misconception, it is not legally permitted to practice polygamy in Nepal regardless of caste or religion. Nepal has a one marriage policy with the two sole exceptions being the case of divorce or death of the spouse.
4. Process of Registering
By this point, the whole process of registering for a marriage certificate is likely to be seen as a complicated process. In reality, as long as both the husband and wife have Nepali citizenship and are of legal age, the registration can be completed by following these 4 simple steps.
Step 1. Fill up the marriage registration form at the local Ward Office
Step 2. Provide the proof of Marriage
Step 3. Provide the required Documents
Step 4. Submit the form along with a copy of the documents to the Ward Office head for approval.
If all things are fine, you should receive a marriage certificate within a few hours at most from the local Ward Office.
Marriage Registration Through Court/Court Marriage
Documents Needed
- Citizenship of both Bride and Groom
- Letter from the ward office of male and female stating the both male and female are either unmarried.
- Photocopy of Citizenship of Witness from sides
- Photos: 4 pieces each
- Certified Letter from ward office for temporary address. Both must have resided since at least (15) fifteen days
Step by Step Marriage Registration Process
Step 1: Get the letter of proof from the Ward office which states the proof that you are not currently married and are of appropriate legal age.
Step 2: Go to the District Court from where you are registering your Marriage Certificate
Step 3: Fill up the form which is directed towards the Marriage Registration Officer and attach all relevant documents mentioned above.
Step 4: Signature on the deed of declaration by both parties.
Step 5: Finally, the Marriage Registrar Officer will issue the Certificate after all the requirements has been met.
Complications regarding Marriage between Nepali and a Foreigner
However, as we all know things are not ideal in real life so complications may arise. Some of the most common complications are missing documents and marriage with a foreigner. In case of missing documents, you can remake the missing documents or find the data that can stand in for the missing document.
Documents Required
- Unmarried certificate
- No objection letter
- Original passport
- Visa of Nepal
As for the complications involving a marriage between a Nepali and a Foreigner the general process is:
- documents regarding the marriage along with the proof of marriage are collected and analyzed to check if the marriage falls within the rules of our country (legal and ethical)
- the documents and proofs are sent to CDO to be verified
- they are then transferred to the said country of a foreigner for analysis and approval
- if the said country approves (I.e the marriage does not violate any rule of that country and nothing seems suspicious for them), procedures regarding marriage certificate are carried out under the supervision of the country representatives in the court
Now while it is a bit of a hassle to get this certificate, the very fact that we can avoid a lot of issues by registering marriage and making this certificate makes everything worth it.
5. Drawbacks of Not having a Marriage Certificate
There are a few governmental certificates that don’t really cause much of an issue if they are not made. This certificate is definitely not one of them. In Fact, there are a lot of issues that one can face if they do not register their marriage and get this certificate. Some of which are:
- The legal provisions and benefits of being wife/husband are lost
- It hampers the census and the data recording process
- Financial and social benefits exclusive to husband/wife are lost
- Hampers in the making of any documents that require marriage to be proven
- Effects relationship status within the family and the risk of getting kicked out increases for the party who is residing in their spouse’s house.
- Hard to prove relationships with the family that one is married to
So the benefits outweigh the minor issues and hassle that can occur when making a marriage certificate.
6. Time and Price
In ideal cases, the process of registering can be completed within a few minutes. But since people are not robots and it takes time to check the validity of the marriage, in a lot of cases, this process takes an hour or two.
In case of missing documents and lawsuits against marriage, the time taken to register a marriage certificate depends on how long the issue lasts.
As for the price, the form of registration costs Nrs. 300.
Final Thoughts
Taking all of these into consideration marriage is a sensitive topic in Nepal since there are still practices like child marriages and repulsion towards inter-caste marriages. However, looking at marriage and the process of registering objectively, none of these are even considered to be married until they are registered – which is a must.
If you want to know more about legal procedures, check our articles about the Things you should know Before registering Birth Certificates, as well as Migration Certificate, but if you want to know more about the social reasonings, you can follow this up with our article on The Reasons Behind the Fear of Intercast Marriage in Nepal.
To get the registration form, just follow the link here.