SUFFOLK-L Archives

From: Colin Fenn <>
Subject: Re: "Marriage" in England pre
Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 21:00:33 +0000

-Hardwicke's Marriage Act
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Charles Henrywood <> raised some good
questions:
>Having just returned from a trip to Scotland where I learned of the
>marriage custom which did not require a religious ceremony (and I'm
>talking of a time
before the rise in popularity (for non-Scots) of
>Gretna Green i.e. pre-1754) I realised I hadn't a clue whether this
>applied in England.

No - the legislation for Scotland has always been - and still is -
different from England and Wales. I am n
ot aware of a common-law
definition of marriage that has applied to England (at least, not in the
last 4 centuries).

In fact, today there still is a role for the Gretna Green marriage, as
Scotland is one of the few countries in Europe where you do
not need to
be present until the Big Day - uniquely all the preparations can be done
by fax.

>
>I have some knowledge of the Fleet marriages but wonder if the ordinary
>folk of Suffolk did as their Scottish counterparts and were considered
>we
d if both parties had consented to the marriage in front of witnesses.
>

I am not aware of any such legislation. There does seems to have been a
degree of flexibility within many communities as to just when a marriage
occurred; it does not seem to
have been uncommon for a couple to get
married until after the first child had arrived. The social pressure to
get married before having children seems to have developed only during
the Victorian era, along with a whole bunch of other moral imperativ
es.

>As such proceedings would have no written record, this might explain
>why so many of us hit brick walls in the mid 18th Century. Can anyone
>offer advice on this, please?

I think that we probably encounter more problems because of the lack o
f
access or incompleteness of surviving copies of registers. A look
through the LDS list of registers shows a fair number of gaps at many
periods in Suffolk parishes; typically because the incumbent did not
wish the LDS to have a copy. But often th
e survival of paper records was
a problem. I believe the Suffolk RO and SFHS has a broader list of
parishes than are commonly available at LDS FHCs.
Another problem I have encountered before the early 1800s is variability
in handwriting and inconsis
tent spellings. Some vicars seemed to believe
that they could spell their parishioners' name better than their owners.
The population of parts of Suffolk declined from C18th and many churches
fell into disuse or were merged with other livings. This m
akes
survivability of records more problematic.
And another issue is the surprising number of weddings that occurred in
distant parts; having gone through Indian records I have been surprised
at the number of marriages there, and the impossibility o
f pinning down
the couples. Brits have appeared all over the world for centuries.

Happy hunting!

--
Colin Fenn
London

This thread:

• Re: "Marriage" in England pre by Colin Fenn <>