Ambrose J:

On 2 January 1963, Tay Wang Tee, filed a petition for letters of administration of the estate of Ho Khian Cheong, deceased, claiming to be his lawful widow. Subsequently, Maureen Angela Boudville, filed a caveat claiming to be one of the lawful daughters and next-of-kin of the deceased. As a result, the hearing of the petition was adjourned for certain issues to be decided by the Court.

The issues were:

(1)Was the caveator's mother, Quek Boo Lat, married to the deceased in accordance with Chinese custom?

(2)Was the caveator the legitimate child of the deceased by Quek Boo Lat?

The facts were these. Quek Boo Lat and the deceased went through a ceremony of marriage in Singapore in 1940. That ceremony was appropriate for the purpose of marrying a principal wife according to Chinese custom. At the time of the ceremony the deceased had a principal wife in Singapore, namely, Tay Wang Tee, the present petitioner. Quek Boo Lat did not know then that the deceased had a principal wife; and she thought that the ceremony made her the principal wife of the deceased. The deceased and Quek Boo Lat lived and cohabited at 17 Teng Tong Road, Singapore, from 1940 till 1943 when the deceased deserted her. The caveator was born to them on 13 September 1941, about a year after their marriage. It was not until after she had been deserted that Quek Boo Lat discovered that the deceased had a principal wife.

It was contended by Counsel for the petitioner that the onus was on the caveator to establish that the marriage of Quek Boo Lat and the deceased was valid according to Chinese custom. Counsel conceded that there was a custom amongst many Chinese domiciled in the former Straits Settlements to take more than one principal wife subject to the proviso that they must not be taken in the same place: see Braddell's Laws of the Straits Settlements, Vol. 1, p. 85.

It was submitted that in the absence of expert evidence that Chinese custom would permit a Chinese to take two principal wives in the same place the Court could not come to such a conclusion; and that, therefore, the caveator had failed to prove that the marriage of Quek Boo Lat and the deceased was valid according to Chinese custom.

Counsel for the caveator contended that the caveator had merely to prove a consensual marriage. He relied on In the Estate of Yeow Kian Kee, deceased, Er Gek Cheng v. Ho Ying Seng [1949] MLJ 171 He referred to the following passages in the judgment of Murray-Aynsley CJ:

The legal requirements for marriage with a t'sai (principal wife) or a t'sip (secondary wife) are, I think, the same. This means that the law of this Colony (Singapore) merely requires a consensual marriage i.e. an agreement to form a relationship that comes within the English definition of marriage. It is no longer any part of that conception that such a relationship must be life-long. "It merely means one of indefinite duration ........"

With these simple legal requirements the difficulties that have troubled the Courts have been merely questions of evidence. The burden of proof is upon whoever alleges the status of t'sip to have existed. What must be proved in order to discharge that burden? In most cases there is some sort of a ceremony, and there is recognition of the t'sip as a member of the husband's family. But this is evidentiary only. It is not essential to the acquisition of the status of t'sip. A formal contract in writing would be conclusive. If the parties were to live as such publicly so as to acquire the reputation of being man and t'sip that would also be evidence that the status had been acquired. On the other hand, I do not consider that mere cohabitation for a considerable period would by itself be sufficient evidence.

In my judgment I had to determine the issues not by Chinese custom exclusively but by the relevant portion of the law of Singapore applicable at the material time. That portion of the law of Singapore is a fusion of the principles and con