Marriage "over the brush" ?

[Nick29]

I was talking to an older cousin the other day, and he mentioned a conversation he had with our grandmother many years ago, in which she spoke of couples getting together on one particular summer's day, where they would get married "over the brush".  I'm not sure grandma did, though.

Now, I've vaguely heard about this - can anyone elaborate ?  I suppose these marriages were legalised at some stage ?

[stanmapstone]

It has not been possible to enter into an informal marriage in England and Wales since the passage of Lord Hardwicke's Act in 1753.

Stan

[stanmapstone]

The phrase, "living over the brush", was used to describe an unmarried couple who lived together.

Stan

[Nick29]

Thanks, Stan 

[Barbara.H]

I've always understood it to relate to an old Romany Gypsy tradtion of couples jumping over a sweeping brush as part of their wedding celebrations, to make the marriage contract binding. Was your grandmother perhaps a Gypsy or lived near a settlement/meeting place of theirs?

It was a very common phrase of my (Lancashire, non-Romany) upbringing, usually as Stan says, a more tolerant version of 'living in sin'.

  Barbara

[stanmapstone]

The phrase, "living over the brush", used to describe an unmarried couple who live together, originated in the tunnel building days of the 19th Century. If a boy and a girl (usually camp followers from the towns, prostitutes in reality) took a liking to each other then the other men and women would respect them as man and wife. They could not afford a church wedding so, holding hands, they jumped over a brush or broom handle held by two older people. They were then "married" in the eyes of their peers.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/9/messages/383.html


Stan

[Mort29]

But wherr did the older people get the 'habit' of using a broom handle - must have older origins I would have thought?

[Nick29]

I've always understood it to relate to an old Romany Gypsy tradtion of couples jumping over a sweeping brush as part of their wedding celebrations, to make the marriage contract binding. Was your grandmother perhaps a Gypsy or lived near a settlement/meeting place of theirs?

It was a very common phrase of my (Lancashire, non-Romany) upbringing, usually as Stan says, a more tolerant version of 'living in sin'.

  Barbara

My granny came from rural Suffolk.  I'm not sure she used the phrase "over the brush" (that may have come from my head), but she did say that in earlier times there was a sort of midsummer fair every year, when couples would congregate and would end up getting married.  Now, if this was by conventional means at the end of the day, or by some rite, she didn't say.  At the time she said it, she was talking about the marriage of her own mother, but I am quite sure, both my grandmother and great-grandmother were both married in church.  She was prone to some strange stories.

[busybod]

Hi all,

I think this comes from slave days in America.  If you have watched Roots, you will see that they refer to "jumping the broom" as a form of informal marriage and "jumping into the land of matrimony".  Once they've jumped the broom they are married.  But I dont know how it actually started.


Busybod