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  • Marrying dead brothers wife

    I came across this yesterday and it quite confused me for a while until I sorted it out..

    was this a common thing to happen? [this took place in 1958 btw]
    Julie
    They're coming to take me away haha hee hee..........

    .......I find dead people

  • #2
    The 1921 Marriage Act allowed marriage to Brother's wife and Sister's husband provided brother or sister in each case was deceased.

    I have come across this once in a friend's tree. Probably quite rare I should think.


    FORBIDDEN MARRIAGE LAWS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM
    Kat

    My avatar is my mother 1921 - 2012

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    • #3
      A list on this site..................



      I think it happened, even when not really allowed, perhaps so that any children of the first marriage could be raised by an aunt and so hopefully be treated kindly.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Darksecretz View Post
        I came across this yesterday and it quite confused me for a while until I sorted it out..

        was this a common thing to happen? [this took place in 1958 btw]
        I've got that in 1872 ..... other way round though, where a man married his dead wife's sister which was not allowed until 1907.



        Caroline
        Caroline's Family History Pages
        Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Darksecretz View Post
          I came across this yesterday and it quite confused me for a while until I sorted it out..

          was this a common thing to happen? [this took place in 1958 btw]

          I would not say it was a common thing to happen but it did happen quite a few times.

          It was not until 1835 that it was against civil law, though it had been against ecclesiastical law since biblical times.
          Before 1835 any such marriages were voidable but in 1835 a bill was passed making any future such marriages void but any existing marriages no longer voidable.
          When a further bill in 1842 to legalize wife's sister marriage was proposed it caused arguments for and against for the next 65 years.

          By the time the Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act was passed in 1907 such marriages were acceptable in most of Europe the USA and many other countries.
          However it took until 1927 before the Deceased Brother’s widow’s Act was passed.

          Cheers
          Guy
          Guy passed away October 2022

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          • #6
            I also have this in my tree - the marriage was in 1902 in Hampshire
            Last edited by herky; 11-02-17, 10:40.
            herky
            Researching - Trimmer (Farringdon), Noble & Taylor (Ross and Cromarty), Norris (Glasgow), McGilvray (Glasgow and Australia), Leck & Efford (Glasgow), Ferrett (Hampshire), Jenkins & Williams (Aberystwyth), Morton (Motherwell and Tipton), Barrowman (Glasgow), Lilley (Bromsgrove and Glasgow), Cresswell (England and Lanarkshire). Simpson, Morrow and Norris in Ireland. Thomas Price b c 1844 Scotland.

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            • #7
              I have cases of such marriages taking place when it was still illegal. The brides were pregnant (presumably having taken on ALL marital duties of their deceased sister!) and the couples didn't seem to marry on home turf, as it were, but returned to the family home after the marriage and life carried on as normal.
              Some years ago I went to a lecture on family history issues and this topic cropped up. The speaker implied that, although illegal, it did happen; the couple often married at the registry office or outside of the home parish, so as not to offend the sensibilities of their own vicar, who should and could not marry them, nor put them under threat of someone objecting after a banns reading, or during the marriage ceremony.

              Jay
              Last edited by Janet in Yorkshire; 11-02-17, 11:39.
              Janet in Yorkshire



              Genealogists never die - they just swap places in the family tree

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              • #8
                Originally posted by Guy View Post
                it had been against ecclesiastical law since biblical times.
                Which has always puzzled me, considering the edict in Deuteronomy 25:5,6: "If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not be married abroad unto one not of his kin; her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother unto her.
                6.And it shall be, that the first-born that she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother that is dead, that his name be not blotted out of Israel.

                Beverley



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                • #9
                  Macbev

                  Old testament versus New testament! It is still in Jewish law a given that an unmarried brother should marry his deceased brother's wife although I think these days it is financial support which would be required rather than actual marriage.

                  I have a number of these marriages in my tree. The vicar certainly knew, having also buried the wife and as it was in a small village, just about everyone else must have known too! After 1837 though, they tended to marry in a different church.

                  I had a friend, now deceased, whose mother turned out not to be herr mother at all, but the twin sister of her dead mother. A long story, but it was a sharp eyed registrar who solved the puzzle of two marriages which appeared to be to the same woman two years apart. Why it was such a secret we never discovered, but suspect her father THOUGHT it was still illegal.

                  OC

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                  • #10
                    I have a man in my tree who married in 1882. His wife bore him two children and died in 1886. We found him living with his dead wife's sister and more children and for a while I thought they were unmarried, but then I discovered they went Christiana (Oslo), Norway where they married in 1890. As far as I am aware they never lived there, they just went there for the marriage ceremony.
                    Elizabeth
                    Research Interests:
                    England:Purkis, Stilwell, Quintrell, White (Surrey - Guildford), Jeffcoat, Bond, Alexander, Lamb, Newton (Lincolnshire, Stalybridge, London)
                    Scotland:Richardson (Banffshire), Wishart (Kincardineshire), Johnston (Kincardineshire)

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Olde Crone Holden View Post
                      Macbev Old testament versus New testament!
                      I realise that....just that some folk who claim to live according to the Bible seem to be a bit selective about which bits of the O.T they will accept.

                      I also have instances of widowers marrying their wife's sister in my tree....especially with a few Irish emigrant families that went to America.

                      Beverley



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                      • #12
                        thanks all for the replies, it really flummoxed me for a while until I realised why! her 1st husband died in 1957 and then in 1958 she married his younger brother..

                        I guess I was just so surprised that it happened so recently. This family history lark sure keeps you on your toes doesn't it?


                        apologies also for not getting back to this sooner... 'life' got in the way!
                        Last edited by Darksecretz; 11-02-17, 16:55.
                        Julie
                        They're coming to take me away haha hee hee..........

                        .......I find dead people

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Macbev View Post
                          I realise that....just that some folk who claim to live according to the Bible seem to be a bit selective about which bits of the O.T they will accept.

                          I also have instances of widowers marrying their wife's sister in my tree....especially with a few Irish emigrant families that went to America.

                          Not just which bits, whole books have been added and left out of the Bible over the years.
                          Cheers
                          Guy
                          Guy passed away October 2022

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