Not been seen for 7 years

[Hill]

Until 2013, all you had to do was go to court and say that person hasn't been seen for 7 years and therefore must be dead!!

Are there any records c1900 that would list those people who had been declared dead allowing their other half to remarry? Or, did they just committ bigamy!!! 

Stewart

[stanmapstone]

From "The marriage laws of England"

"With respect to a person whose husband or wife has been continuously absent for the last seven years, and the fact of whose existence has been unknown to such person during that time, the presumption is that the former consort is no longer living, and that such person is a widower or a widow. As the law allows a person under these circumstances to marry again with impunity, a clergyman would be justified in putting up the banns and celebrating a second marriage.....................At the same time it should always be remembered that a second marriage, while the husband or wife of the first marriage is living is void, and in the event of the return of the absent spouse the ceremony is a mere nullity."

Stan

[Hill]

Thanks Stan.

[stanmapstone]

Just to add  that it is under the 1604 Bigamy Act, that after seven years the husband or wife could marry again, but in the event of the return of the absent spouse the ceremony was null.

Stan

[nowornever]

Curious....
What was the legal position if someone was transported for a period of over 7 years?

Their whereabouts would be known in this case,  but often little chance that they would return to Britain

How was a dependant wife and children expected to survive?

I've never been certain of the law in these circumstances.

[majm]

Curious....
What was the legal position if someone was transported for a period of over 7 years?

Their whereabouts would be known in this case,  but often little chance that they would return to Britain

How was a dependant wife and children expected to survive?

I've never been certain of the law in these circumstances.

The person transported beyond the seas ... so the marriage was effectively terminated upon the convicted person landing in the colony 'beyond the seas'.  The wife with young children and no means of support was effectively a widow, so free to marry another person.   

 https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=778743.0

See also :

Certainly convicts were allowed to remarry if they'd been 'out of/away from the marriage' for more than seven years - but I don't think this was considered bigamy - the more so as they had very little hope of ever returning to England.   
Their partners in England could also remarry if their convicted OH's had been gone for more than 7 years  . . .  so, not just occurring in Australia.  The marriage was considered void is my understanding, so not bigamy.

No doubt someone will correct me if I am wrong.

Wiggy

You are correct Wiggy
The law "An Act to restrain all Persons from Marriage until their former Wives and former Husbands be dead" was introduced in 1604.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~framland/acts/1604.htm

Section 2 of this 'bigamy' act allowed partners to remarry if the other was overseas for at least 7 years or if they had no knowledge of their partner being alive for 7 years.
The wording of section II puts it like this :

"II. Provided always, That this Act, nor any Thing therein contained, shall extend to any Person or Persons whose Husband or Wife shall be continually remaining beyond the Seas by the Space of seven Years together, or whose Husband or Wife shall absent him or herself the one from the other by the Space of seven Years together, in any Parts within his Majesty’s Dominions, the one of them not knowing the other to be living within that Time. "

Cheers
Guy

 JM

[Rena]

One of my late mother's married female cousins was admitted to the local asylum.  Her family thought she had suffered from what was known as the "baby blues" and asked her husband to sign her out of the asylum, but he wouldn't because he had a "fancy woman, who he eventually married.  Her siblings continued to visit her  and eventually acknowledged that she had become institutionalized and wouldn't be able to survive in the outside world.

[Guy Etchells]

Sometimes the vicar adds a note to a marriage in the parish register that the "former" husband has been transported.
Cheers
Guy