At 04:12 PM 10/15/1999 +1000, you wrote:
>Now another query for you which I have already sent to Mary Dundas because
>she was the first to send me a reply! The early bird certainly got a worm
>this time.
>
>What is "marriage", "male " and Female " in the USA? The initial student
>query  developed into another about what exactly was a marriage anyway and
>who could be married and at what age etc.
>"Marriage, according to law in Australia, is the union of a man
>and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered
>into for life."; or words to that effect." (Section 46 of the Marriage Act
>1961) This definition is taken from a common law decision in the UK in the
>nineteenth century. We don't have state differences in this field as
>marriage is a matter for Federal not state regulation. (We have different
>laws for de facto relationships including, in some states, same sex
>relationships.)
>
>
> There is at least one celebrated English case ( I think in the
>1960s) rejecting the possibility of a marriage where a man had
> become a woman through a sex change because the essential
>nature of man and woman was defined by the chromosomes
>which of course could not be changed. Now I understand that not all men
>have the same chromosome structure of XX (female)  or XY (male) and that
>there are documented cases of XXY so I've got no idea of anything anymore
>and no idea at all of how we got to this from a course in basic commercial
>law principles!
>
>Has anyone got any clues on this one? It's late on a beautiful Spring
>Friday afternoon in Australia, assignments are not due in till next week
>and  as it's rare to get a really interesting question form business law
>students I thought I'd share this one.
>Anne Maureen
>
>
A case has been argued and is awaiting decision in a state
intermediate-level appeals court in San Antonio, Texas, involving the
following question:  Texas allows marriage only between those of different
genders.  (I was about to say "opposite genders," but now that I've learned
a little more about chromosomal structure, I decided to say "different.")
X was a guy.  X had a sex change operation which, combined with a regimen
of hormone treatments, cause X to look and sound very much like a woman.  X
and Y (who was a man and still is) want to be married.  The issue for the
court is whether X is a man or a woman.  If X has become a woman, X and Y
can be legally married.

John Allison