• Marriages in England & Wales
• Church Law
• Common Law
• Inheritance and Place of Settlement
• Marriage Banns and Licences
• Marriage Allegation (example)
• Marriage Bond (example)
• Special Licences
• Early Parish Registers
• Clandestine and Secret Marriages
• Harwicke's 1753 Marriage Act
• Non-Conformist and Roman Catholics
• Parish Marriage Registers and Banns Books
• Marriage Act 1836 and Civil Registration
• Age at Marriage
• Pregnant Brides
• Recollections of English Rural Marriages in the 1870s

Marriages in England & Wales

Along with births and deaths (or baptisms and burials), marriages are accepted as one of the staples of the family historian, however, we should be careful about this, whereas a person's birth and death are inevitable a marriage isn't even where a couple appear to be living as a family with children. To understand why people get married it is important to separate what may influence them, church law, common law and inheritance. The key question is how marriage affects the rights and responsibilities of man, wife and legitimate children, for propertied classes marriage and inheritance were main ways transferring ownership, for lower classes common law was the consideration and since the seventeenth century inheritance of rights of settlement.

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Church Law

The Roman Catholic view of marriage is characterised as the only estate where sex was not sinful, that marriage was monogamous, indissoluble and the family was the place to nurture the faith in the young. This is a strong view so it is suprising that a religious marriage ceremony, as we understand it, didn't really develop until the time of the reformation in England. What made a marriage 'in the eyes of God' (and to the community) was the freely expressed consent of the spouses, a verbal contract between them seen and heard by two witnesses, the marriage ceremony was not the important factor, marriage was not a sacrament until the fifteenth century.

Church porches were offered by priests a public places to exchange vows, the priest was more witness than celebrant, only gradually was it seen that priests conducted the ceremonies and for vows to be made inside the church to standard rites.

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Common Law

The public exchange of vows before witnesses was sufficient also to make a man and woman married in common law, a custom which continued until outlawed by Harwicke's 1753 Marriage Act, though continued after that in many rural districts. The term 'living tally' was used throughout the country to describe couples living as man and wife but had not formally been married in a church.

There was no official record keeping of common law marriages.

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Inheritance and Place of Settlement

Property could be disposed of by a witnessed will if one had been made, otherwise lawfully married spouses and legitimate children would inherit estates and entitlements. The poor laws of the seventeenth century defined peoples place of legal settlement (where they would get parish relief in times of need) partly in terms of marriage: a wife took her husbands place of settlement as did their legitimate children. A couple who were not formally married could be the cause of complex cases in times of need when the parishes attempted to decide the legal place of settlement of a common law wife and the children, if classed as illegitimate then the children's place of settlement would be their place of birth which may not be that of either parent. For people born and dying in the same parish this would not be a problem.

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Marriage Banns and Licences

In England there is a right to be married in the church of the parish in which you live, which has customarily become the parish of the bride. Before the marriage an attempt must be made to see that there is no reason why the marriage between the couple should not take place, these formalities were arranged either by the reading of banns or granting of licences.

A concern of the church was consanguinity, that close blood relations should not marry, though the idea of relation was extended at one time to include spiritual relations, such as godparents. In the thirteenth century it was decreed banns should be read thrice if the marriage was to be in the church. The reading of banns has survived and is the way that many couples have gained the right to be married in a church. Banns are read on three several (and consecutive) Sundays in the parishes of both spouses if these should be different and the wording became standard, "...publish the Banns of Marriage between [groom's name] of the parish of [name] and [bride's name] of the parish of [name] (or 'of this parish' or 'both of this parish'). If any of you know cause, or just impediment, why these two persons should not be joined together in holy Matrimony, ye are to declare it. This is the first (or second, or third) time of asking".

The phrase 'of the parish of' is significant and from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth century would be the persons legal place (parish) of settlement. In those years it could be taken to mean the person's place of residence but not necessarily so, lower classes would need agreement of a parish to reside there if it was not their place of settlement.

An affidavit was necessarily sworn by the couple, or parent or guardian if either were a minor, before banns could be published, these have rarely survived though a copy was found at the beginning of a parish register from Timberland, Lincolnshire, of interest also are the variations in spellings of the groom's surname. Punctuation and capitalisation of the writing are noticeably different from today's standards.

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The alternative to the reading of banns was a licence to marry obtained from the diocesan authority or his surrogate. There would be a fee for the license but there were the advantages of more privacy than having banns read and that churches other than the couple's parishes could be used for the wedding venue if either spouse was resident there for a short period prior to the marriage.

There was no official repository for marriage licences, once the ceremony had taken place then they survive only if parishes or families have retained them, however, a licence depended on two other documents: a marriage allegation and a marriage bond which for good reasons were retained. The allegation, made on oath by the future groom, stated the parties to the marriage, their parishes, the intended place of marriage and testified that there was no impediment to the marriage. The marriage bond was made often by the groom and friend or relative which stated the forfeit to be paid should the allegation later be shown to be false and indemnifies the diocesan authority from any personal liability of issuing a bogus licence should this later be found to be the case. Licences were easily obtainable if the conditions could be met, viz. the swearing of the allegation and the payment of the fee.

The following examples of an Allegation and Bond were written on pre-printed forms, bold italics have been use to show the hand-written details that were entered.

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Early Parish Registers

Parish registers can date from 1538 though record keeping from 1558 was more effective. Through to 1754 these registers were general with baptisms, burials and marriages recorded on blank pages without any prescribed format, what details were noted was a local matter. A marriage would be a simple affair and the record in the register may note only the date and names of the spouses (in the earliest registers the bride may not be named), common law marriages contracted other than in a church would not be recorded, including those of dissenters to the Church of England who could marry in their own houses or chapels but these had no official standing.

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Clandestine and Secret Marriages

Outlawed by Harwicke's Marriage Act in 1754. Clandestine marriages were legally binding, unless bigamous, and were performed by ordained clergy but canon laws or other requirements were ignored, such as the reading of banns or the dubious procurement, or absence of, licences. Secret or clandestine marriages were sought by couples wanting the benefits of a legally binding union but were prevented from doing so in the normal way, lack of consent where a minor was involved would be typical.

Clandestine marriages took place all over England, it was a matter of finding a clergyman willing to perform the ceremony, which was done for a fee. Clergymen imprisoned for debt would find clandestine marriages to be a useful source of funds and areas around debtors' prisons, such as the Fleet Prison in London, became infamous for clandestine marriages. These clergy kept records of the marriages and although many have been lost some have found there way into public records offices.

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Harwicke's 1753 Marriage Act

Harwicke's Act was primarily aimed at stopping clandestine and common law marriages because of the legal uncertainties they created but by insisting that only marriages taking place according the rites of the Church of England were legal the act caused resentment amongst the dissenters (only Jews and Quakers had been granted legal marriages according to their own rites).

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Non-Conformists and Roman Catholics

Dissenting groups, or non-conformists, such as Baptists, Methodists and Congregationalist could, unless restrained by other acts of parliament, conduct their own marriages but to be legal the marriage would have to be repeated according to the rites of the Church of England. It is possible to find marriages recorded twice where dissenting groups kept their own records. Lawful marriage outside the Church of England became possible when civil registration began in 1837.

The experiences of England as nation from the mid sixteenth and through the seventeenth centuries, following Mary Tudor's reign, define the country as anti-Catholic, due in no small part to Catholic Mary's persecution of the protestants. Before the 1530s Christian England and Roman Catholic England were one and the same but Catholicism was to become synonymous with treason and that faith persecuted, it would take many years for Catholics to be accepted again and rights to be returned to them. Families did survive as Catholics but keeping a low profile and out of trouble was a necessity and the ability to pay fines. Catholic churches were non-existent but Catholicism survived through the private chapels of notable families, these chapels served as churches to the Catholic population and they kept records, many Catholic houses, chapels and their records were destroyed in the Gordon Riots of 1780. Catholics were legally entitled to hold their own ceremonies from 1791 but to be lawful must be performed also within the Church of England so as for other non-conformists, marriages could appear in both chapel and parish registers. Catholic emancipation was enacted in 1829 though it was not until 1837 that Catholic chapels could be licensed for marriages if a registrar was present (see Civil Registration below)

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Parish Marriage Registers and Banns Books

A consequence of Harwicke's Act was that from 1754 parish registers were introduced specifically and solely for the recording of marriages and banns. Unlike the blank pages of the general registers, the pages of the marriage registers were usually pre-printed with spaces left for the particular details of the marriage, some parishes continued to record marriages in the general registers as well.

Combined banns and marriage registers would have a record of the reading of the banns with the marriage entered immediately beneath, as in the example. If one of the couple was from another parish then banns would also have been read there and recorded similarly but without the details of the marriage, some marriage indexes compiled from such banns books have included banns as marriages which then will list the wrong date and parish for the actual marriage ceremony. Importantly marriage entries were now primary sources for family historians, signed by the spouses and witnesses at the time of the event.

Copies of parish marriage entries, in the form of certificates, could be made and may have been issued as a matter of routine as with later civil certificates. These copies of the parish marriage register entries will only have survived if kept by the family such as this example pasted into a family bible.

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Marriage Act 1836 and Civil Registration

Civil Registration was effective from 1^st July 1837 and the system for marriages was different in a number of respects from the registration of births and deaths. The act preserved the establish churches (Church of England) as lawful places of marriage and introduced civil marriages performed by registrars in Registry Offices, it also gave the option for non-conformist places of worship to be used for marriages if a registrar was present.

Wherever a marriage was held a civil marriage register entry was made signed by groom, bride and witnesses and additionally listed groom and bride's occupation and address and the names and occupations of the groom and bride's fathers, a copy of the marriage certificate was given to the couple. For the purposes of civil registration Church of England ministers were also registrars and marriages in their churches would have both parish and civil register entries, it is desirable to try and locate filmed copies the parish marriage register entries as these will be copies of the actual entries as signed by the participants. Civil certificates, whether obtained from local registrars or through the General Register Office (GRO) will only be hand-written copies (or filmed copies of hand-written copies) of the originals.

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Age at Marriage

In the medieval period the Roman Catholic Church had the age of consent to marriage as 14 years for a male and 12 for a female, after the reformation in England these ages for marriage remained but minors required parental or guardians consent. The age at marriage was raised by the 1929 Marriage Act to 16 for both males and females but consent was still required for persons who had not reached the legal age of adulthood, which can be taken as 21 years until the 'age of majority' was reduced to 18 years by the 1969 Family Law Reform Act. What mattered when a people married was whether they had reached 'full age' and able legally to give their own consent, consequently marriage certificates often only state that a person was of full age or a minor.

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Pregnant Brides 

It is surprising the number of baptisms and births that appear to take place well within nine months of the parent's marriage. A marriage ceremony was not the event it was to become nor as significant and may only be seen as necessary to legitimise an expected child, the couple may already be co-habiting. Expecting a child could be the impetus for the marriage but such a wedding should not be assumed to a 'shot-gun' affair, the couple could well be accepted by the community as man and wife already. There is evidence that in some places or where inheritance was of importance that marriage would not be considered until the woman was shown not to be barren, that is, 'with child'.

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Recollections of English Rural Marriages in the 1870s

Edwin Grey in his 1934 book "Cottage Life in a Hertfordshire Village" wrote of his childhood years around 1870, his account of rural weddings is surprising to us today because of their simplicity and the changed role of the best man.

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