To begin with, there are six kinds of marriages to be considered, all with different premises. Two are classified as Chinese Modern Marriages; those contracted in Hong Kong under Nationalist China laws, and those contracted in China or any other place outside the colony under the same Nationalist laws. Marriages contracted under Chinese custom as it existed and was recognized in 1843 are Chinese Customary Marriages. Marriages under the colony’s laws, Christian or otherwise, are called Registry Marriages. There are also Reputed Marriages, which is the colony designation for common-law marriages, and, finally, a group called Foreign Marriages, which includes all those contracted outside the colony under foreign laws, particularly those performed and registered in Red China under its monogamous marriage law. Thus, the usually simple question, “Are you married?” when fully answered in Hong Kong, may take a considerable amount of the inquirer’s time. Chinese Customary Marriages, still popular in the colony, are generally recognized as valid, but there is no single definition which covers them. There are any number of ancient prescriptions for them which contradict one another, but they are alike in that they follow the accepted rites and ceremonies of the families of the bride and groom. Chinese women with a modern consciousness of their rights have no affection for such unions, since they permit a husband to divorce his wife for any reason and give her no right to leave him if she really feels inclined to do so. Furthermore, and this is an equally sore point, it permits the husband to take concubines, though the notion that a wife might adopt a similar polygamy is quite inconceivable. Chinese Modern Marriages in the colony far outnumber all other types—more than 200,000, by an official estimate—although Registry Marriages have recently gained in number. All that is required to make them valid is an open ceremony witnessed by two persons. The Nationalist laws applicable to such unions give the man no legal right to acquire a concubine, despite the fact that some husbands in the colony find it convenient to pretend they do. The “extra” girls are naturally flattered to be told they are concubines (i.e., secondary wives with full domestic rights), rather than mistresses with no legal or social standing. In everyday relationships with the courts and the government, Chinese Modern Marriages are recognized as respectable unions. None the less, they have no legal validity when contracted in Hong Kong, for they are neither entered at the Marriage Registry nor are they celebrated according to “the personal law and religion of the parties,” as colony laws require.