Banns of marriage

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The banns of marriage, commonly known simply as the "banns" or "bans"

Christian denominations whose traditions are similar. In 1983, the Catholic Church removed the requirement for banns and left it to individual national bishops' conferences to decide whether to continue the practice, but in most Catholic countries
the banns are still published.

The purpose of banns is to enable anyone to raise any canonical or civil legal impediments to the marriage, so as to prevent marriages that are invalid. Impediments vary between legal jurisdictions, but would normally include a pre-existing marriage that has been neither dissolved nor annulled, a vow of celibacy, lack of consent, or the couple's being related within the prohibited degrees of kinship.

Historical overview

Roman Catholic