CHAPTER XVI.
Holland.
Marriage.—A male must be eighteen years or more and a female sixteen years or more in order to be lawfully married.
Marriage is forbidden between all descendants and ascendants, legitimate or otherwise, and in the collateral line marriages are forbidden between brothers and sisters of the whole or half blood, legitimate or illegitimate.
Marriage is also forbidden in Holland between brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, between uncle and niece, or granduncle and grandniece, and between aunt and nephew, grandaunt and grandnephew, legitimate or otherwise.
The Queen has power under the law to grant a dispensation for good reasons relieving any couple from the effect of such prohibitions. She has also power, for sufficient cause, to permit persons under age to contract marriage.
As a preliminary to marriage children must ask the consent thereto of their parents, but the consent of the father is sufficient. If the father is dead the consent of the mother suffices.
If the mother and father are both dead the grandparents take their places.