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Untitled Article
custom of the Church of England , but is not stated to be contrary to the law of England . Though the churchmen held the celebration of marriages without the intervention of a person in orders to be void , yet they treated marriages celebrated by such a person , not in facie ecclesice , and with publication of banns , &c , as valid , though irregular ; in which light the Gretna-Green marriages are still regarded by the law of Scotland . The consequence was , that clandestine marriages soon became frequent ; and clergymen of bad character
were easily found to perform them for the emolument which they produced . When the Committee for Scandalous Ministers was sitting in 1640 , a petition was presented against the Vicar of Kidderminster and hig Curate , as unlearned tipplers , who preached but once a quarter ; and the curate ' s trade in the week days was said to be unlawful marriages . * In the course of the following century these irregular practices greatly increased , until abolished in 1756 by the passing of the Marriage Act .
In the year 1644 , the Book of Common Prayer having been abolished , and the Directory substituted by Parliament in its place , the solemnization of marriage was regulated by that ordinance , which directe that " though marriage be no sacrament , yet it be expedient that it be solemnized by a lawful minister of the word ; " and banns are directed to be published , ancj
the ceremony to be performed , in a place appointed for public worship . It may be observed , that the prayer and exhortation given in the Directory are free from the objections which have been sometimes urged against the present service . f In 1653 , the ceremony was again altered , and after a publication of banns at the church or market-place , the ceremony was directed to be performed before a Justice of the Peace . J This ordinance was confirmed
in 1656 , except as to a clause of nullity , which was repealed . g It appears by the ordinance of 1653 , that the consent of parents or guardians was required if either of the parties were under the age of twenty-one years . || It is probable that the frequency of clandestine marriages originally led
to the passing of the statute 26 Geo . II . c . 33 ; though , according to Horace Walpole , 5 f it owed its introduction to Lord Bath , who happening to attend a Scotch appeal was struck with the hardship of a matrimonial case , in which a man after a marriage of thirty years was claimed by another woman on a precontract The history which Walpole has given of this statute is both curious and amusing .
" The Judges were ordered to frame a bill which should remedy so cruel a retrospect . They did , but drew it so ill , and it was three times printed so inaccurately , that the Chancellor ( Lord Hardwicke ) was obliged to give it ample correction . Whether from mere partiality to an ordinance thus become his own , or whether in shaping a law new views of power opened to a mind fond of power , and fond of dictating ; so it was , that the Chancellor gave all his attention to a statute into which he had breathed the very spirit of aristocracy and insolent nobility . It was amazing , in a country where liberty gives choice , where trade and * money confer equality , and where
* Godwin ' s Commonwealth , Vol . I . p . 52 . f See Scobcll , p . 87 . | . Scobell , p . 236 . § Id . p . 394 . || There is a laughable proviso at the end of this ordinance—that the Justice , in case of dumb persona , may dispense with their pronouncing the words , and with joining hands in case of persons who have not hands . If Memoir ** , Vol . I . -
Untitled Article
74 History of the English Marriage Law .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1828, page 74, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2557/page/2/
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