Gordon Lovett wrote:
> What were the rules governing the minimum age of marriage and the
> age of cohabiting etc. in the seventeenth century.
Two books which deal with the matter in the Victorian period, but which
probably contain background material for the earlier time, are:
Michael Pearson, The Age of Consent, David & Charles, 1972.
Ann Stafford, The Age of Consent, Hodder & Stoughton, 1964.
As with any question of past laws, Holdsworth's History of English Law,
in innumerable volumes, will be in any law library and would answer the
question if you delve about in it.
But this extract from James T. Hammick, The Marriage Law of England,
Shaw & Son, London, 1887, might help:
"The age of legal capacity to marry in England is fixed at 14 years in
males and 12 in females; and no persons are capable of binding
themselves in marriage until they have attained that age, which is
termed the age of consent. Our law has adopted in this respect a law of
Roman and even Athenian origin, by which the ages of 14 and 12 were
fixed as the marriageable ages, a period of life much earlier than that
at which marriage can in any case be prudent or desirable in this
country. Derived from the south of Europe, it rests upon the principle
that marriage ought not to be made impossible by law between those who
are capable by nature of being the parents of children, but it is
inapplicable in the north, where both physical and intellectual
qualities are less precocious than in southern or eastern countries.
Formerly, by the law of England, espousals were allowed after the
seventh year, but if a boy under 14 or a girl under 12 married, such
marriage was considered only inchoate and imperfect, and when either of
them came to the age of consent they might agree or disagree to the
marriage . In the present state of the law, any consent of parties who
have not attained the canonical ages of 14 and 12 respectively cannot
constitute a marriage. And where one of the parties is under the age of
consent the contract is equally invalid as if both were of insufficient
age."
He later says that under the old common law parties who had reached the
age of consent might marry without the consent of parents or guardians.
But by Lord Hardwicke's Act (26 Geo 2, c.33) (The Clandestine Marriages
Act, 1753) marriages by licence needed the parental consent of a party
under 21; marriages after banns were valid unless a parent objected
publicly in church.
In addition to books about marriage, books about informal marriages,
such as marriage over the broom, should also appear in a law library.
--
Frank Sharman
Wolverhampton, UK.
tel: +44 01902 763246
look: no quotes, no graphics!
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