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  1. Home
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  3. Marriage Law and Practice in the Long Eighteenth Century
  • Cited by 28
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
February 2010
Print publication year:
2009
Online ISBN:
9780511596599
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511596599
Subjects:
Constitutional and Administrative Law, Legal History, Law, British History after 1450, History
Series:
Cambridge Studies in English Legal History
Information

Book description

This book uses a wide range of primary sources - legal, literary and demographic - to provide a radical reassessment of eighteenth-century marriage. It disproves the widespread assumption that couples married simply by exchanging consent, demonstrating that such exchanges were regarded merely as contracts to marry and that marriage in church was almost universal outside London. It shows how the Clandestine Marriages Act of 1753 was primarily intended to prevent clergymen operating out of London's Fleet prison from conducting marriages, and that it was successful in so doing. It also refutes the idea that the 1753 Act was harsh or strictly interpreted, illustrating the courts' pragmatic approach. Finally, it establishes that only a few non-Anglicans married according to their own rites before the Act; while afterwards most - save the exempted Quakers and Jews - similarly married in church. In short, eighteenth-century couples complied with whatever the law required for a valid marriage.

Reviews

'The book itself is both accessible, and notable for the care taken in constructing and delivering its arguments … In conclusion, this book is both an enjoyable and an enlightening read. It is characterised by a clear sense of purpose, articulate delivery, and the immense and meticulous scholarly effort upon which it is based.'

Source: The Journal of Ecclesiastical Law Society

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