Nicholas Fish to Frelinghuysen, May 3, 1884

No. 18. Mr. Fish to Mr. Frelinghuysen.

Sir: Application having been made by the Rev. Orville Reed to have a marriage celebrated at the legation between himself and the daughter of an American missionary at Constantinople, I have informed him that the marriage should be performed in accordance with the Belgian law and section 4082 of the Revised Statutes.

I believe that under my instructions I could not do otherwise.

Mr. Reed, in his application, cites as a precedent the marriage at this legation on February 21, 1882, reported to the Department by Mr. Putnam in his No. 133 of February 22, 1882.

As the opinion of Mr. Leopold Orban, an official in the foreign office, though doubtless correct, is not an official opinion of the Belgian Government, I should hesitate to permit the performance of a marriage based on that personal and informal note. Mr. Putnam seems to have shared such hesitancy so far as to read to the parties’ to the marriage § XLVIII of the printed Personal Instructions and Mr. Leopold Orban’s note.

The instruction No. 660, of November 14, 1874, from the Secretary of State to Mr. Washburne, as published in Foreign Relations, page 445, 1875, appears to deal with just such a case, where an opinion was given by an eminent counselor that “a marriage contracted between Americans before the minister of the United States and at the hotel of the legation is valid in the eyes of the French law.” The Department of State, however, decided the marriages must be performed in accordance with French law, although performed within the precincts of the legation. I respectfully ask that I may be instructed whether I am to adopt the course followed by Mr. Putnam, or whether my decision in Mr. Reed’s case is to serve for future guidance in such matters.

Should you decide that Mr. Reed’s request should be complied with, a cablegram to that effect will enable me to grant it without inconvenience to him as to time.

I have, &c.,