CaitlinUK

Sorry for the unrelated question but I need some background information. I`d be pleased if anyone can help. The question is whether there were any possibilities in Spain in the early 1970s for a Spanish Catholic man to marry a Protestant British woman. I figured out two ways but not sure about them:

1) The woman rejects her religion and get Christianized, them they get married and everything is OK;

2) The man rejects his religion, becomes an official atheist and they have a civil marriage that can cause him troubles.

On more thing, if both the variants were acceptable, could the woman leave the country with their children for good?

zilar

I married in 1967 in Spain. Husband is Catholic and I am not. We married in church and I had to promise beforehand to bring up any children from the marriage as Catholic. The promise had to be made before witnesses. We were not allowed flowers or music during the ceremony.
I was given Spanish nationality automatically on marriage. If I had travelled on my own with the children , I would have had to have my husband's permission. I also needed to have his permission to open a bank account.
If we had wanted to get married in a civil ceremony in Spain, he would have had to formally renounce his religion.
If we had married in a civil registry office in England, the marriage would not have been officially recognised in Spain, and as many men did ar the time, he would have been able to return to Spain and be free to re-marry.

Retired in Euskadi

I'm British & I married my Basque (Spanish passport wife here in the Basque country in 1975. Although I am a Catholic, like she, if I'd been Anglican, it wouldn't have mattered, apart from the Catholic "law" of bringing up the children as Catholic. We then moved to England where we worked until 2009 when we retired here.

zilar

My husband too is Basque and we married in the Basque country.
if I understand correctly, CaitlinUK is asking if a woman would have been allowed to leave Spain for good with the children of the marriage without her husband's consent and I think the answer would be that , in theory, no she wouldn't. It does depend on what nationality the children had , on whose passports the children were included and what nationality passport she was using..

CaitlinUK

You understand me correctly. I read that back then children of a British woman who were born in an international marriage abroad could not acquire her UK citizenship automatically, also that Spain does not acknowledge the dual Spanish-British citizenship, so the children would likely have been of Spanish nationality like their father but possibly could have had both British and Spanish passports. I also know that divorce was legalized in Spain in 1981. Couldn`t she leave after the divorce?

christmasoompa

I know nothing about Spanish laws, but I'd be amazed if citizenship had any relevance at all. Permission is normally required from the other parent to remove children from any jurisdiction, regardless of their citizenship or whether the couple are divorced or not.

Is there a specific reason you're asking? Are you trying to find out if somebody in your family was a British citizen?

CaitlinUK

I`m sorry to bother you, my question is only driven by curiosity if this sutuation could ever happen. Now I`m coming to the point that it would unlikely.

zilar

There have been several changes in the law since then, but my children, Bntish mother and Spanish father, born in England , were granted dual nationality by the Spanish authorities until the age of 18. However, as I understood then, the situation, children born in Spain of a Bntish mother would have had to apply for British citizenship, which is why many women went back to Britain for the birth. However as has been said, citizenship would not have affected custody in case of divorce.

CaitlinUK

Thank you everyone who wrote me back! This was really helpful!