Agnes and William were married on 18 December 1931 at the Townsville Registry Office. Agnes had just turned eighteen and William was twenty-five. Before the marriage, Agnes and her father had paid a visit to the Sub-Collector of Customs in Townsville to inquire about her ‘legal position’ if she were to marry William. The sub-collector later stated that Adolf Breuer had ‘seemed to be against that union but must have consented’; the birth of Agnes’s son in early August the next year suggests that the marriage, and her father’s consent to it, could have been prompted by a pregnancy. The sub-collector told Agnes that the marriage would not confer any right on William to remain in Australia and that her nationality would change to that of her husband; in the face of these warnings, however, Agnes maintained that she ‘had considered all aspects of the matter’ and still wanted to be married.^[28]

William had made preparations to leave Australia for a honeymoon in China, and his father returned in early January 1932 to care for the family shop while William was away. Lum Mow’s visit was cut short, however, and he returned to China three weeks later. Lum Mow was apparently taken ill again, but knowing of the events that were to follow, it is likely that Lum Mow left at least in part in anger at his son’s marriage. William and Agnes’s Chinese holiday was delayed until March while arrangements for the management of the shop were taken care of. By this stage, it was confirmed that Agnes was pregnant. A medical certificate presented to customs officials before the couple’s departure noted that she was about three months’ pregnant, ‘but is quite fit for travel and is in good health’.^[29]

Having married William, Agnes lost her rights as a British subject. In the eyes of the Australian Government, she was now ‘Chinese’, and her unborn child would not only be ethnically Chinese, it would be born in China. Agnes was given permission to leave Australia and return within two years; her baby could return on ‘evidence of its bona fides’, providing it returned with Agnes before it was three years old. William’s certificate of exemption, which allowed him to remain in Australia first as a student and then as manager of his father’s business, was due to expire but as it had been renewed time and again for the previous 11 years it was presumably thought by William to be of no great matter. He would return from their holiday to resume his place as manager of the family store.