A
Fleet Marriage is the best-known example of an irregular or a clandestine
marriageMarriage is a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged by a variety of ways, depending on the culture or demographic...
taking place in England before the
Marriage Act of 1753In England and Wales, the Marriage Act 1753, also called Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act , required formal ceremony of marriage, thus abolishing common-law marriage. The act required that if both parties to a marriage were not at least 21 years old, then consent to the marriage had to be given by the...
came into force on March 25th, 1754. Specifically, it was one which took place in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
's
Fleet PrisonFleet Prison was a notorious London prison. It was built in 1197 and situated off what is now Farringdon Street, on the eastern bank of the Fleet River after which it was named...
or its environs during the 17th and, especially, the early 18th century.
Technically, under
English lawEnglish law is the legal system of England and Wales, and is the basis of common law legal systems used in most Commonwealth countriesand the United States...
a marriage could be recognized as valid if each spouse had simply expressed (to each other) an unconditional consent to their marriage.
A
Fleet Marriage is the best-known example of an irregular or a clandestine
marriageMarriage is a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged by a variety of ways, depending on the culture or demographic...
taking place in England before the
Marriage Act of 1753In England and Wales, the Marriage Act 1753, also called Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act , required formal ceremony of marriage, thus abolishing common-law marriage. The act required that if both parties to a marriage were not at least 21 years old, then consent to the marriage had to be given by the...
came into force on March 25th, 1754. Specifically, it was one which took place in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
's
Fleet PrisonFleet Prison was a notorious London prison. It was built in 1197 and situated off what is now Farringdon Street, on the eastern bank of the Fleet River after which it was named...
or its environs during the 17th and, especially, the early 18th century.
Irregular and clandestine marriages
Technically, under
English lawEnglish law is the legal system of England and Wales, and is the basis of common law legal systems used in most Commonwealth countriesand the United States...
a marriage could be recognized as valid if each spouse had simply expressed (to each other) an unconditional consent to their marriage. But these "
common-law marriagesCommon-law marriage, sometimes called de facto marriage, informal marriage or marriage by habit and repute, is a form of interpersonal status which is legally recognized in some jurisdictions as a marriage even though no legally recognized marriage ceremony is performed or civil marriage contract...
" were the exception. Nearly all marriages in England, including the "irregular" and "clandestine" ones, were performed by ordained clergy.
An "irregular" marriage was one taking place away from the home parish of the spouses (but after
bannsThe banns of marriage, commonly known simply as "the banns" , are the public announcement in a Christian parish church that a marriage is going to take place between two specified persons...
or
licenceA marriage licence is a document issued, either by a church or state authority, authorizing a couple to marry. The procedure for obtaining a licence varies between countries and has changed over time...
), or taking place at an improper time. "Clandestine" marriages were those that had an element of secrecy to them: perhaps they took place away from a home parish, and without either banns or marriage licence. The secrecy might be for many reasons: no parental consent; or where bigamy was involved. The facts that fees were involved meant that many clergymen were willing to conduct such marriage ceremonies. Some clergymen, for a fee, were not averse to antedating marriage certificates to make it appear that a couple had already been married for some time.
The number of irregular and clandestine marriages was enormous, particularly in London, and certain churches, such as Holy Trinity Minories and St. James Dukes Place were the main centers of such trade up until the 1690's. The Marriage Duty Act of 1696, by penalizing clergymen who married couples without banns or licence, put an end to irregular marriages at these and other parochial churches. But clergymen operating in the Fleet, by a legal quirk, could not effectively be proceeded against, and the clandestine marriage business there boomed. In the 1740s, over half of all London weddings were taking place in the environs of the Fleet Prison. The Fleet parsons seem to have run a 24-hour service, albeit often reluctantly.
While some of the Fleet marriages were for criminal or fraudulent purposes - and it was these which made the venue notorious - the great majority of the couples marrying there did so with the aim of making a normal lasting union. Commentators of the time, like the media today, concentrated on wrongdoings, and this was copied by Victorian historians, who have stressed the "seamy" side. It was not until recently that attention was drawn to the fact that the great majority of Fleet marriages were for honest purposes. Many couples simply wanted to get married quickly and easily, not unlike Las Vegas weddings today.
Fleet Prison
The earliest recorded date of a Fleet Marriage is 1613 (although there were probably earlier ones), while the earliest recorded in a Fleet Register took place in 1674. As a prison, the Fleet was claimed to be outside the jurisdiction of the church. The prison warders took a share of the profit, even though a statute of 1711 imposed fines upon them for doing so: it only moved the clandestine marriage trade outside the prison. There were, in fact, so many debtors that many lived in the area outside the prison (itself a lawless area which operated under the "rules of the Fleet"). Disgraced clergymen (and many who pretended to be clergymen) lived there, and marriage houses or
tavernsA tavern or pot-house is, loosely, a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and, more than likely, also be served food, though not licensed to put up guests. The word derives from the Latin taberna and the Greek ταβέρνα/taverna, whose original meaning was a shed or...
carried on the trade, encouraged by local tavern-keepers in the neighbourhood who employed
toutIn British English, a tout is any person who solicits business or employment in an importune manner ....
s to solicit custom for them. There were also many clerks who made money recording the ceremonies.
During the 1740's up to 6,000 marriages a year were taking place in the Fleet area, compared with 47,000 in England as a whole. One estimate suggests that there were between 70 and 100 clergymen working in the Fleet area between 1700 and 1753. It was not merely a marriage center for the criminals and poor, however: both rich and poor availed themselves of the opportunity to marry quickly or in secret.
Marriage Act of 1753
The scandal and abuses brought about by these clandestine marriages became so great that they became the object of special legislation. In 1753,
Lord Hardwicke's Marriage ActIn England and Wales, the Marriage Act 1753, also called Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act , required formal ceremony of marriage, thus abolishing common-law marriage. The act required that if both parties to a marriage were not at least 21 years old, then consent to the marriage had to be given by the...
was passed, which required, under pain of nullity, that banns should be published or a licence obtained; that, in either case, the marriage should be solemnized in church; and that in the case of minors, marriage by licence must be by the consent of parent or guardian; and that at least two witnesses must be present. Jewish and
Quaker ceremoniesQuaker weddings are the traditional ceremony of marriage within the Religious Society of Friends.-Quaker marriage in history:As Friends began to grow in the early 1650s, the issue of how to conduct weddings among Friends became prominent. Early Quakers rejected practices such as using priests of...
were exempt. Clergymen conducting clandestine marriages were liable to
transportationTransportation or penal transportation is the deporting of convicted criminals to a penal colony. Examples include transportation by France to Devil's Island and by the UK to its colonies in the Americas, from the 1610s through the American Revolution in the 1770s, and then to Australia between...
.
This act had the effect of putting a stop to these marriages, so far as England was concerned, and henceforth couples had to fare to Scotland (
Gretna GreenGretna Green is a village in the south of Scotland famous for runaway weddings. It is in Dumfries and Galloway, near the mouth of the River Esk and was historically the first village in Scotland, following the old coaching route from London to Edinburgh. Gretna Green has a railway station serving...
had substantial use until 1856, when English law declared such marriages invalid) or to the
Channel IslandsThe Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two separate bailiwicks: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey...
where the 1753 Act did not apply.