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Archiver > SOG-UK > 1999-04 > 0923468928


From: Laraine Hake <>
Subject: [SOG-UK-L] Prohibited Marriages
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 03:08:48 -0400


Message text written by INTERNET:
>Until early this century, it was forbidden to marry a deceased spouses's
sibling.

We were discussing this yesterday and since there is no blood relationship,
we couldn't understand why these marriages were prohibited.
<

No answer as to why they were prohibited, but this was supposedly one of
the reasons that Henry VIII cited in his attempts to get his marriage to
Katherine of Aragon annulled, the fact that she had previously been married
to his brother Arthur - until Henry was desperate for a legitimate male
heir, it was claimed that the earlier marriage had not been consummated,
but perhaps after 20 years of marriage he had a crisis of conscience!

Within my family history I have an Elizabeth Rawlinson (Rollinson) ) who
married Joseph Alabaster in 1857 and had five children. Joseph died in
1866. In 1867 Joseph's brother, William Alabaster (10 years younger),
married an Elizabeth nee Norris. However, on the 1871 census we find the
five children from the Joseph\Elizabeth Rawlinson marriage are living with
William and Elizabeth ("Norris"). It seemed feasible that Elizabeth HAD
married her "deceased spouse's sibling" and this was finally proved when
Elizabeth gave her maiden name as Rollinson at the registration of the
birth of one of her later children in the 1870s.

Since throughout all these years Elizabeth was living with either Joseph or
William in the same part of Bethnal Green, the Nichol, it seems that a lot
of effort was expended just to keep the church authorities in the dark;
neighbours must have known the position in any case. On the other hand, it
shows that how importantly the ceremony of marriage must have been
regarded.......otherwise, why did they not just live together!

Laraine Hake
Alabaster Society

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