Talk:Fleet Marriage

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[edit] Fleet marriage

I have rewritten this article, since it takes, verbatim, part of this article, which was in itself incorrect in many instances. To take a few examples:

  • such marriages at the Fleet Prison were only one example of many. The article suggests that these were the only ones.
  • the details about the law of England. There was in fact no need for a clergyman to be present; all that was required was the vows to be stated. I have included the lowest age at which that could be done.
  • Banns or a licence were only required after 1694/5 under two Marriage Acts.
  • there were many reasons why clandestine marriages were undertaken, other than the expense: the Fleet marriages were very expensive, since both clergymen and warders expected a ‘cut’ - it was why they did it in the first place!
  • the marriages moved out of the Prison to the surrounding area after the 1711 statute: now was the time when marriage houses and taverns grew up in an very lawless part of the City
  • Gretna Green was not the only place where couples went, as I have indicated
  • my reference book (Ancestral Trails: The Complete Guide to British Genealogy and Family History, Mark D Herber (Sutton Publishing, Ltd 1997)) contains the exact details of the numbers of registers etc now extant. I have included many other details from it.
  • The Registrar-General has not occupied Somerset House for at many decades; all such documents now are kept by The National Archives (renamed from the Public Record Office).

Peter Shearan 12:00, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I find this introduction very confusing although I'm not sure I understand it enough to make a simple change:
A Fleet Marriage is the best-known example of an irregular or a clandestine marriage taking place in England before 1753. It was one which took place in London's Fleet Prison during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
It doesn't seem right to have the form: An X is the Y : in the first sentence. Simple switching "the" to "a" won't work and even if it did, it would be reversing the original intentions of Peter Shearan. dpen2000 00:09, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Iregular Marriages

Is it true that the common law permitted marriages in secret? My understanding is that a marriage always required a public element, though it did not have to be advertised widely. A marriage certainly required more than the declaration between the couple - that declaration had to be made in front of others. Avalon 19:07, 23 September 2005 (UTC)