RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: BumbleB on Thursday 10 January 13 17:33 GMT (UK)
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Perhaps a silly question :-\
I have a marriage that takes place in 1815, where it states that the marriage is "with the consent of parents".
My understanding is that this would intimate that one or other of the parties is "under age". But is that the only criteria?
From census returns, and death registrations, both parties were over the age of 21 when they married in 1815. If I've got the correct groom then he was born in 1786 - I don't have a baptism for the bride and so everything is subject to confirmation, but the census returns would indicate a birth year of 1791/2.
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Lord Hardwicke's 1753 Marriage Act, made it illegal for those in England under the age of 21 to get married without the consent of their parents or guardians. If they were of full age then they did not need consent.
Stan
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Thank you Stan, that was what I thought, so very intriguing. Looks like we have more than one couple with the same forenames!!! ???
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If the bride and/or groom were underage at marriage and didn't have parental consent, would that make the marriage void? Also what were the penalties if it was later discovered that one/both had in fact lied about their age?
Croxia
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No, In the case of marriage after banns, consent is always presumed in the absence of any notice or expression of dissent by the person or persons, required to give consent. Marriages of minors, i.e. under 21, without consent after banns were valid, unless the banns had been forbidden by parents or guardians openly and publicly in church at the time of publication.
Stan
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In the case of marriage by licence consent was required, if consent had not been obtained, then. as Hardwicke's Act says the marriage "shall be absolutely null and void to all Intents and Purposes whatsoever"
Stan
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I've come across "with consent of parents" being filled in in some parishes where the parties were of age while researching for my one name study. I've tended to think it was a misunderstanding on the part of the church official, in the first few years after the pre-printed registers included "with the consent of....."
I wouldn't assume you've got the wrong couple because of this. Can you look at other marriages in the same year to see if they all have this?
Anne
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Hi Anne - I can't immediately do so, and it was a very small parish, but I'll have a look the next time I go to Lichfield. Very interesting thought, although saying that I didn't spot anything on an 1810 marriage in the same parish.
I'll let you know
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I think it would be post 1812 - this from Wikipedia:
In 1812 an "Act for the better regulating and preserving Parish and other Registers of Birth, Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, in England" (Rose's Act [1][2]) was passed. It stated that "amending the Manner and Form of keeping and of preserving Registers of Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials of His Majesty's Subjects in the several Parishes and Places in England, will greatly facilitate the Proof of Pedigrees of Persons claiming to be entitled to Real or Personal Estates, and otherwise of great public Benefit and Advantage". Separate, printed registers were to be supplied by the King's Printer, and used for baptisms, marriages and burials. These are more or less unchanged to this day.
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You're right. The 1815 entry was originally written at the end of the old-format marriage books, and then repeated in the new-format book, which of course only came in in 1813. :)
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Thank you Stan for your replies. I had asked the question because I have details of a marriage that took place in a register office by certificate and the bride stated her age as 23, she was in fact 20.
She was also not truthful about her late father's occupation either. However as checks were, presumably not carried out, the registrar filled in the details as given. Probably wouldn't get away with theses days though!
Croxia
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I have gone back to 1698 with a member of the family and it would appear that he was 18 years old and his bride who was born in 1716 was 15 years of age. I was completely thrown by the fact that the latter was given permission to get married so young, although someone posted on this site that at one time girls as young as 12 (with consent) could marry! Ancestry never ceases to amaze me, that particularly would probably not be allowed in 2013. :o
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The legal age for marriage was 12 for girls and 14 for boys until the 1929 Age of Marriage Act which made all marriages carried out from 10 May 1929, void if either partner was under the age of 16.
From The Marriage Law of England 1873.
Sect.4. – Want of Sufficient Age.
The age of legal capacity to marry in England is fixed at 14 years in males and 12 in females; and no persons are capable of binding themselves in marriage until they have attained that age, which is termed the age of consent. Our law agrees in this respect with the civil law, which required that the parties should be of the age of puberty, namely, 14 if male, and 12 if female – a period much earlier than that at which marriage can in any case be prudent or desirable. Derived from the south of Europe, it rests upon the principle that marriage ought not to be made impossible by law between those who are capable by nature of being the parents of children.
Stan
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Hardewicke's Act of 1753 was known to have many overly-strict requirements in it, causing many well-intentioned couples/families to fall foul of its constraints.
One famous protracted legal case in the 19thC involved the legitimacy of the 1795 marriage of the Earl of Belfast (from 1799, the 2nd Marquis of Donegall), George Augustus CHICHESTER (1769-1844).
Doubt was cast on its validity many years after the event, when a marriage of his eldest son in to the Shaftesbury family was being arranged in 1819.
GAC had married the (illegitimate, minor) daughter of the Sovereign of Belfast in some haste.
The full publication of Banns had been properly followed.
Unfortunately she had never had a formal guardian appointed.
Because of her "minor" status, a full conformance to the detailed letter of the Act required that the full formal permission of such a guardian had to be given.
[Her illegitimate status meant that the permission of her father was insufficient.]
After GAC pursued several personal legal law suits over many years, the issue was eventually only resolved by unusual amendments to the legislation being debated/approved through Parliament.
[It was unusual because its remit was made retrospective in time.]
This finally fully legitimised his 7 offspring, particularly the heir to his titles.
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Not surprised by those early limits on valid marriage ages.
Visited the Nelson museum in Norfolk last year, where it was stated that boys of 9 years old were meant to be self-sufficient - i.e. no longer a burden on their families.
Capt. Jock