Clandestine Marriages Act 1753
Act of Parliament | |
Other legislation | |
---|---|
Repealed by | Marriage Act 1823, s. 1 |
Status: Repealed | |
Text of statute as originally enacted |
The Clandestine Marriages Act 1753, also called the Marriage Act 1753, long title "An Act for the Better Preventing of Clandestine Marriage", popularly known as
Background
Before the Act, the legal requirements for a valid marriage in
As clandestine weddings and the unruly culture that surrounded them began to threaten power and property, questions about where and how to marry became urgent matters of public debate. In 1753, in an unprecedented and controversial use of state power, Lord Chancellor Hardwicke mandated Anglican church weddings as marriage's only legal form. Resistance to his Marriage Act would fuel a new kind of realist marriage plot in England and help to produce political radicalism as we know it.
— Lisa O'Connell, The Origins of the English Marriage Plot[5]
Effects
The Act tightened the existing ecclesiastical rules regarding marriage, providing that for a marriage to be valid it had to be performed in a church and after the publication of
The Act was highly successful in its stated aim of putting a stop to clandestine marriages, i.e., valid marriages performed by an Anglican clergyman but not in accordance with the canons. Thus the notorious practice of clandestine
However, some couples evaded the Act by travelling to Scotland. Various Scottish "border villages" (
A similar traffic to the Isle of Man also sprang up, and in 1757 the legislature of the island passed An Act to prevent Clandestine Marriages[14] in very similar terms to the English Act of 1753. But the Manx Act differed in one significant respect from the latter, in requiring clergy from abroad, who were convicted of conducting marriages in breach of the Act's requirements, to be pilloried and have their ears cropped, before being imprisoned, fined and deported. The Act was repealed in 1849.[15]
See also
References
- S2CID 144650291.
- ^ Probert, Rebecca, Marriage Law & Practice in the Long Eighteenth Century: A Reassessment (CUP, 2009) chapter 5
- ^ Constitutions and canons ecclesiasticall, 1604
- ^ Rebecca Probert, Marriage Law & Practice in the Long Eighteenth Century: A Reassessment chapter 2, (The Misunderstood Contract Per Verba de Praesenti).
- OCLC 1225190242.
- ^ Section 1
- ^ Section 4
- ^ Probert, Rebecca, "The Wedding of the Prince of Wales: Royal Privileges and Human Rights" (2005) Child and Family Law Quarterly (Jordans) 17(363)
- ^ By the Marriage Act 1836
- ^ Section 18
- ^ Lee Brown, R. "The Rise and Fall of the Fleet Marriage", ch 6 in R. B. Outhwaite, Marriage and Society (London: Europa Publications, 1981)
- ^ Wilkinson, T., Memoirs of his own Life (York, 1790), Vol 1, p.74
- ^ Wilkinson, T., Memoirs of his own Life (York, 1790), Vol. 1, p.91
- ^ Statutes of the Isle of Man vol.i p.281
- ^ "How to deal with come-overs". Retrieved 28 January 2011.
Further reading
- The text of the Act
- Probert, Rebecca (2009). "Control over Marriage in England and Wales, 1753–1823: The Clandestine Marriages Act of 1753 in Context". Law and History Review. 27 (2): 413–450. S2CID 145445533.
External links
- Civil Marriage in the Catholic Encyclopedia
- Why do people get married after having children? BBC News online2011-05-26