Fleet marriage
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AFleet marriagewas a common example of an irregular or aclandestine marriage[1]taking place in England before theMarriage Act 1753came into force on March 25, 1754. Specifically, it was one which took place inLondon'sFleet Prisonor its environs during the 17th and, especially, the early 18th century.
Irregular and clandestine marriages
[edit]An "irregular marriage"was one that took place either away from the home parish of the spouses (but afterbannsorlicence), or at an improper time. "Clandestine" marriages were those that had an element of secrecy to them: perhaps they took place away from a home parish, and without either banns or marriage licence.
It is often asserted that underEnglish lawof this period a marriage could be recognized in court if each spouse could provide evidence they had simply expressed (to each other) an unconditional consent to their marriage.[2]With few local exceptions, earlier Christian marriages across Europe were by mutual consent, declaration of intention to marry and upon the subsequent physical union of the parties.[3][4]By the 18th century, the earlier form of weddings ( "common-law marriages"in modern terms) were the exception. Nearly all wedding ceremonies in England, including the" irregular "and" clandestine "ones, were performed by ordained clergy.[citation needed]
TheMarriage Duty Act 1695put an end to irregular marriages at parochial churches by penalizing clergy who married couples without banns or licence. By a legal quirk, however, clergy operating in the Fleet could not effectively be proceeded against, and the clandestine marriage business there carried on. In the 1740s, over half of all London weddings were taking place in the environs of the Fleet Prison.[citation needed]The majority of Fleet marriages were for honest purposes, when couples simply wanted to get married quickly or at low cost.[citation needed]
From 1742 to 1754 a large number of such marriages were also conducted atKeith's Chapel,Westminster,by the Reverend Alexander Keith.[5]
Fleet Prison
[edit]The earliest recorded date of a Fleet marriage is 1613[6](although there were probably earlier ones), while the earliest recorded in a Fleet register took place in 1674. As a prison, the Fleet was claimed to be outside the jurisdiction of the church. The prison warders took a share of the profit, even though a statute of 1711 imposed fines upon them for doing so: it only moved the clandestine marriage trade outside the prison. There were, in fact, so many debtors that many lived in the area outside the prison (itself a lawless area which operated under the "rules of the Fleet" ). Disgraced clergy (and many who pretended to be clergy) lived there, and marriage houses ortavernscarried on the trade,[6]encouraged by local tavern-keepers in the neighbourhood who employedtoutsto solicit custom for them. There were also many clerks who made money recording the ceremonies.[citation needed]
During the 1740s, up to 6,000 marriages a year were taking place in the Fleet area, compared with 47,000 in England as a whole. One estimate suggests that there were between 70 and 100 clergy working in the Fleet area between 1700 and 1753. It was not merely a marriage centre for criminals and the poor, however: both rich and poor availed themselves of the opportunity to marry quickly or in secret.[citation needed]
Marriage Act 1753
[edit]The scandal and abuses brought about by these clandestine marriages became so great that they became the object of special legislation. In 1753,Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act[7]was passed, which required, under pain of annulment, that banns should be published or a licence obtained; that, in either case, the marriage should be solemnized in church by a recognised cleric; and that in the case of minors, marriage by licence must be by the consent of parent or guardian; and that at least two witnesses must be present.JewishandQuaker ceremonieswere exempt. Clergy conducting clandestine marriages were liable totransportation.[8]
This act had the effect of putting a stop to these marriages, so far as England and Wales were concerned, and henceforth couples had to travel to Scotland, the nearest point beingGretna Green.[6]This had substantial use until 1856, when Scottish law was changed to require 21 days' residence. The act did not extend to Scotland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man.[9]Similar legislation was passed in the Isle of Man in 1757.[10]
See also
[edit]- History of marriage in Great Britain and Ireland
- Jumping the broom,Broomstick marriage
- Marriage in England and Wales
- Savoy Chapel
- Schulze Registers
- The Clandestine Marriage
References
[edit]- ^Probert, Mary; Brown, Liam D'Arcy (August 2008)."The impact of the Clandestine Marriages Act: three case-studies in conformity"(PDF).Continuity and Change.23(2): 309–330.doi:10.1017/S0268416008006759.S2CID145350916.Retrieved25 August2019.
- ^Probert, Rebecca (14 November 2009). "Marriage Law & Practice in the Long Eighteenth Century: A Reassessmentchapter 2,The Misunderstood Contract Per Verba de Praesenti".SSRN1504026.
{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^Excerpt from Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in Late Medieval London"the sacramental bond of marriage could be made only through the freely given consent of both parties."
- ^"marriage.about".marriage.about. 16 June 2010. Archived fromthe originalon 14 February 2017.Retrieved22 June2019.
- ^Geraldine Edith Mitton,Mayfair, Belgravia and Bayswater(2007), p. 28
- ^abcRines, George Edwin, ed. (1920)..Encyclopedia Americana.
- ^"1753: 26 Geo. 2 c.33: Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act".ALSATIA.30 December 2015.Retrieved2 August2021.
- ^Marriage Act 1753 section 8
- ^Marriage Act 1753 section 18
- ^"How to deal with come-overs".gumbley.net.Retrieved2 August2021.
Sources
[edit]- Weinreb, Ben; Hibbert, Christopher, eds. (1995).The London Encyclopaedia(2nd ed.). Macmillan.ISBN0-333-57688-8.
- Chambers, Robert(1864).The Book of Days.
External links
[edit]- John Ashton (1888).The Fleet. Its Rivers, Prison, and Marriages.New York: Scribner and Welford.Retrieved14 March2021– viaProject Gutenberg.
- John Southerden Burn (1846).The History of the Fleet Marriages: With Some Account of the Wardens of the Prison, the Parsons, and Their Registers, to which are Added Notices of the May Fair, Mint, and Savoy Chapels, and Numerous Extracts from the Registers.Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans.Retrieved2 October2012.
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