The impact of the marriage act of 1753: Was it really "a most cruel law for the fair sex"?

Eighteenth-Century Studies

Volumn 38, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 247-262

  Probert, Rebecca ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 67649950649     PISSN: 00132586     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
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References (105)

1. The Act was for the better preventing of clandestine marriages, 26 Geo II c. 33. Scotland and Ireland were subject to separate rules. For an account of the debates in Parliament, see David Lemmings, "Marriage and the Law in the Eighteenth Century: Hardwicke's Marriage Act of 1753," The Historical Journal 39 (1996): 339-60.
2. Hansard's Parliamentary History, Vol. XV col. 69 (Henry Fox).
3. E. g. Eve Tavor Bannet, "The Marriage Act of 1753: 'A Most Cruel Law for the Fair Sex'," Eighteenth Century Studies 30 (1997): 233-54.
4. Her interpretation of the position prior to 1753 has been challenged by Duff, who points out the problems that existed under the old system. However, Duff concurs that the 1753 Act also "resulted in manifest cruelties to women and children": Virginia Duff, "Early English Novelists Testify to the Law's Manifest Cruelties Against Women Before the Marriage Act of 1753," Women's Studies 29 (2000): 583-618, 615.
5. The increase in illegitimacy is attributed to the 1753 Act by Jona Schellekens, "Courtship, the Clandestine Marriage Act, and Illegitimate Fertility in England," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 25 (1995): 433-44.
6. Stephen Parker, Informal Marriage, Cohabitation and the Law, 1750-1989 (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1990), 61;
7. Lawrence Stone, Road to Divorce (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1990), 132.
8. Olive Stone, Family Law (London: Macmillan Press, 1977), 30;
9. J. Hall, "Common Law Marriage," Cambridge Law Journal 46 (1987): 106, 107.
10. John MacQueen, A Practical Treatise on the Law of Marriage, Divorce and Legitimacy, as administered in the Divorce Court and in the House of Lords (London: Maxwell, Sweet, Stevens & Sons, 2nd ed 1860).
11. The general canon law of the Western church was supplemented and modified by statute and common law in this jurisdiction. After the Reformation the right of appeal to Rome was replaced with a right to appeal to a specially constituted court, the Court of Delegates. See Martin Ingram, Church courts, Sex and Marriage in England, 1570-1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1987), chapter 1.
12. James Brundage, Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1987);
13. Christopher Brooke, The Medieval Idea of Marriage (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1989).
14. A special licence could be obtained to authorize the celebration of the marriage privately but such licences were reserved for those of rank: Thomas Poynter, A Concise View of the Doctrine and Practice of the Ecclesiastical Courts in Doctors' Commons, Relative to the Subject of Marriage and Divorce (2nd ed, London: J & WT Clarke, 1824), 50-1.
15. Sections 8 and 11.
16. See e. g. Douglas Hay and Nicholas Rogers, Eighteenth Century English Society (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1997), 37.
17. See Ingram, chapter 6;
18. John Addy, Sin and Society in the Seventeenth Century (London: Routledge, 1989), chapter 12;
19. Collins v Jessot (1705) 87 ER 913;
20. Baxter v Buckley (1752) 161 ER 17.
21. See Haydon v Gould (1711) 91 ER 113. The common law courts did not have jurisdiction to decide on the validity of a marriage, but the existence of a marriage might affect the parties' legal rights or status at common law and might have to be considered in this context.
22. Edward Shorter, The Making of the Modern Family (London: Collins, 1976), 10.
23. See e. g. The Marriage Act of 1696, which imposed a penalty of £100 on any clergyman who performed a marriage without banns or licence.
24. Donald John Steel, National Index of Parish Registers: Vol. 1, Sources of Births, Marriages and Deaths Before 1837 (Society of Genealogists, 1968), 62.
25. R. B. Outhwaite, Clandestine Marriage in England, 1500-1850 (London: The Hambledon Press, 1995), chapter 2;
26. Roger Lee Brown, "The Rise and Fall of the Fleet Marriages," chapter 6 in R. Outhwaite (ed) Marriage and Society (London: Europa Publications, 1981);
27. John Gillis, For Better, For Worse: British Marriages, 1600 to the Present (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1985).
28. R. B. Outhwaite, "Sweetapple of Fledborough and Clandestine Marriage in Eighteenth Century Nottinghamshire," Transactions of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire 94 (1990): 35-46.
29. Edward Wrigley, "Clandestine Marriage in Tetbury in the Late Seventeenth Century," Local Population Studies (1973): 15.
30. See J. Boulton. "Clandestine Marriages in London: An Examination of a Neglected Urban Variable," Urban History 2 (1993): 191, who describes London's marriage patterns as "idiosyncratic. "
31. An Act for the enforcing the Laws which restrain Marriages without Licence of Banns, and for the better registering Marriage Births, and Burials, 7&8 Wm 3 c. 35 (1696).
32. See Mark Herber, Clandestine Marriages in the Chapel and Rules of the Fleet Prison 1680-1754 (London: Francis Boutle Publishers, 1998), 20.
33. See Boulton, "Clandestine Marriages. "
34. Ingram, Church Courts;
35. Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words and Sex in Early Modern England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996).
36. Stone, Road to Divorce, 79.
37. Antonia Fraser, The Weaker Vessel (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984), 371.
38. Henry Swinburne, A Treatise of Spousals, or Matrimonial Contracts (London, 2nd ed 1711), 63.
39. See e. g. Nicholas Rogers, "Carnal Knowledge: Illegitimacy in Eighteenth Century Westminster," Journal of Social History 23 (1989): 355.
40. See Tim Hitchcock, English Sexualities, 1700-1800 (London: Macmillan, 1997), chapter 1, discussing the diary of John Cannon.
41. Boulton, "Clandestine Marriages," 192.
42. Priestv Parrot (1750-1) 28ER 103.
43. Such evidence could be used to support the allegation that a marriage had taken place in the Fleet, see e. g. Grant v Grant (1754) 161ER 217.
44. Cited in Plunkett v Sharp (1754) 161ER 255.
45. See e. g. Lady Mayo v Brotvn (1753) 161ER 100;
46. Eaton v Bright (1755) 161ER 272;
47. Fownes v Ettricke (1756) 161ER 333.
48. (1754) 161 ER 230.
49. Quoted in Bridget Hill, Eighteenth Century Women: An Anthology (London: Unwin Hyman Ltd, 1984), 35.
50. Samuel Richardson, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740, Oxford World Classics 2001), 269.
51. Henry Fielding, Tom Jones (1749, Oxford World Classics 1998), 672.
52. (1711) 91 ER 113.
53. See Read v Passer (1794) 170ER 332;
54. Lawrence v Dixon (1792) 170ER 123.
55. (1756) 161 ER 339.
56. Not all bigamy cases reported in the Old Bailey Proceedings stipulate the place of the marriages, but of those that do, half name the Fleet.
57. See, for example, Walton v Rider (1752) 161ER 7;
58. Conran v Lowe (1754) 161ER 230.
59. Scrimshire v Scrimshire (1752) 161ER 782.
60. William Lecky, A History of England in the Eighteenth Century (London: Longmans, Green & Co, 1892), Vol. II, 117.
61. See especially Bannet, "A Most Cruel Law," and Schellekens, "Illegitimate Fertility. "
62. Gillis, For Better for Worse, 110.
63. See also Olwen Hufton, The Prospect Before Her: A History of Women in Western Europe, 1500-1800 (London: HarperCollins, 1995), 135.
64. Stone and Outhwaite have both commented on his reliance on folklore. One of Gillis's key sources- G. Gwyn, "Besom Wedding in the Ceirog Valley" (1928) 39 Folk-lore 149- is based on inferences from the register of births about the marital status of parents, but these inferences are not supported by the actual marriage register.
65. E. Wrigley, "Marriage, Fertility and Population Growth in Eighteenth Century England" chapter 7 in Outhwaite, Marriage and Society, 152.
66. For a discussion of the growth of religious dissent in this period, see Alan Gilbert, Religion and Society in Industrial England: Church, Chapel and Social Change, 1740-1914 (London: Longman, 1976).
67. Marriage Act 1753, s. 18.
68. See Donald John Steel, National Index of Parish Registers Vol 2: Sources for Nonconformist Genealogy and Family History (Chichester: Phillimore & Co Ltd, 1973), 509, who notes that "[t]he majority of Nonconformist marriages and deaths appear in the Church of England registers. "
69. Donald John Steel and Edgar R. Samuel, National Index of Parish Registers Vol 3: Sources for Roman Catholic and Jewish Genealogy and Family History (Chichester: Phillimore & Co Ltd, 1974), 862-8 indicates that Catholic leaders did not endorse non-compliance with the law.
70. Marriage Act 1836, 6&7 Will. IV, c. 85.
71. John Haskey, "Trends in marriage and divorce in England and Wales: 1837-1987" Population Trends 48 (1987): 11-19, table 1.
72. See for example Ball v Coutts (1812) 35ER 114;
73. Sullivan v Sullivan (1818) 161 ER 728.
74. See Outhwaite, Clandestine Marriage, 137.
75. Richard Adair, Courtship, Illegitimacy and Marriage in Early Modern England (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 1996).
76. Wrigley, "Marriage, Fertility," 146.
77. See Peter Laslett, Karla Oosterveen and Richard Smith (eds. ) Bastardy and its Comparative History (London: Edward Arnold, 1980).
78. U. Henriques, "Bastardy and the New Poor Law," Past and Present 37 (1967): 103-29.
79. John Beresford (ed) The Diary of a Country Parson: The Reverend James Woodforde (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), 103.
80. See for example Low v Peers (1770) 97ER 138;
81. Horam v Humphreys (1772) 98ER 543;
82. Morton v Fenn (1783) 99ER 618.
83. See Susan Staves, "British Seduced Maidens," Eighteenth-Century Studies 14 (1980): 109 for a discussion of these options.
84. See for example Burrell v Strong (1672) 89ER 50;
85. Holder v Dickeson (1673) 89ER 70;
86. Harrison v Cage (1698) 91ER 1156;
87. Cork v Baker (1717) 93ER 367;
88. Holt v Ward Clarencieux (1732) 93ER 954;
89. Woodhouse v Shepley (1742) 26ER 721.
90. Lisa O'Connell, "Marriage Acts: Stages in the Transformation of Modern Nuptial Culture," A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies (1999): 68-111, 86-7.
91. Miles Ogborn, "This most lawless space: The geography of the Fleet and the making of Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act of 1753," New Formations 37 (1999): 11-32.
92. Anyone who altered or forged the register would be subject to severe penalties: see s. 16 of the Marriage Act.
93. See e. g. St Devereux v Much Dewchurch (1762) 96ER 205;
94. Smith v Huson (1811) 161ER 987;
95. Diddear v Faucit (1821) 161ER 1421.
96. (1791) 170 ER 73.
97. See further Rebecca Probert, "The Judicial Interpretation of Lord Hardwicke's Act of 1753," Journal of Legal History (2002): 129-51, on the way in which the courts interpreted the 1753 Act.
98. (1819) 161 ER 1252;
99. (1812) 161 ER 1088.
100. See for example Hodgkinson v Wilkie (1795) 161ER 546.
101. (1815) 161 ER 1159.
102. Turner v Felton (1812) 161ER 1088;
103. See for example Roderick Phillips, Putting Asunder (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1988).
104. See Roy Porter, Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World (London: Penguin, 2000).
105. A Letter to the Public: Containing the Substance of what hath been Offered in the Late Debates upon the Subject of the Act of Parliament for the Better Preventing of Clandestine Marriages (London: Charles Marsh, 1753).