Marriage Act 1753 - Effects

Effects

The Act tightened the existing ecclesiastical rules regarding marriage, providing that for a marriage to be valid it had to be performed in a church and after the publication of banns or the obtaining of a licence. Those under the age of 21 had to have parental consent if they married by licence; marriages by banns, by contrast, were valid as long as the parent of the minor did not actually forbid the banns. Jews and Quakers were exempted from its provisions, although the Act did not go so far as to declare such marriages valid and it was many years before their legal standing was assured. Nor did the Act apply to members of the British Royal Family. Indeed, members of the Royal Family have been consistently exempted from all general legislation relating to marriage since this date, which is why doubts were expressed in 2005 about the ability of Prince Charles to marry Camilla Parker-Bowles in a civil ceremony, civil marriage being the creation of statute law. It was also provided that the 1753 Act had no application to marriages celebrated overseas or in Scotland.

The Act was highly successful in its stated aim of putting a stop to clandestine marriages, i.e., valid marriages performed by an Anglican clergyman but not in accordance with the canons. Thus the notorious practice of clandestine Fleet Marriages associated with London’s Fleet Prison was ended, although there were various short-lived and abortive attempts to claim exemption for the Savoy Chapel in the Strand and the parish of Temple in Cornwall. The early death of the Savoy’s minister on board ship while waiting to be transported for his flouting of the Act may have discouraged others from making similar claims, even if his demise was due to gout rather than to the conditions of his imprisonment.

However, some couples evaded the Act by travelling to Scotland. Various Scottish “Border Villages” (Coldstream Bridge, Lamberton, Mordington and Paxton Toll) became known as places to marry. And in the 1770s the construction of a toll road passing through the hitherto obscure village of Graitney led to Gretna Green becoming synonymous with romantic elopements.

A similar traffic to the Isle of Man also sprang up, and in 1757 the Legislature of the Island passed an Act to prevent Clandestine Marriages in very similar terms to the English Act of 1753. But the Manx Act differed in one significant respect from the latter, in requiring clergy from abroad, who were convicted of conducting marriages in breach of the Act's requirements, to be pilloried and have their ears cropped, before being imprisoned, fined and deported. The Act was repealed in 1849.