“It is true that in matrimonial proceedings the judge does not sit “merely as an umpire between conflicting parties”; Noble v. Noble & Ellis [1963] 1 W.L.R. 1395. But his “inquisitorial” duties are not unlimited and just as, where a contract is not manifestly illegal, an appeal court will not order a retrial merely because the judge did not inquire into a possible latent illegality which was not pleaded, so I think it would be contrary to accepted practice to allow an appellant in matrimonial proceedings to complain because the judge did not intervene by calling for further evidence as to the interest of someone who was neither a party nor a child of one of the parties. In a homogeneous society a judge can draw on his own knowledge in assessing what benefits are likely to accrue to a woman named in a discretion statement if the petitioner is made free to marry her.”
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