Marriage query

[Wilf]

I remember reading a thread on here a while back about a man who married his late wife's sister.

I'm sure that I read that it was 'illegal' at one time, although it is ok now.

Can anyone tell me when it became legal?

Thanks
Allie

[Guest]

I believe it was in 1907

[Wilf]

Thanks Val

I was sure I had read it on here but couldn't remember the year.

I have one in 1860 and one in 1906

Allie

[Olde Crone Holden]

Wilf

It may have been illegal (or prohibited, rather) but it happened all the time.

OC

[bev&kev]

I have a few "dodgy" couples; living as man and wife, but they didn't actually marry.

[Wilf]

Thanks OC

prohibited was the word I was looking for lol

I remember that there were a few people on here who had come across this in their families.

Allie

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

My 3xg-grandfather married his late wife's niece (also prohibited), having had a child with her whilst his first wife was still alive and they were all living in the same house!

[Wilf]

I have a few "dodgy" couples; living as man and wife, but they didn't actually marry.

I have some of those too Bev,
Well.... either they didn't marry or I can't find the marriage

My 3xg-grandfather married his late wife's niece (also prohibited), having had a child with her whilst his first wife was still alive and they were all living in the same house!

That is a bit naughty Merry
I do wonder what reaction there must have been from other family members at the time.

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

That is a bit naughty Merry
I do wonder what reaction there must have been from other family members at the time.

I doubt his first wife was impressed! lol

[Richard]

The earlier thread in question was one of my own, My 4xgreat grandad William Tomkins seeming to have remarried to his deceased wifes sister. If I remember rightly about the time he did it there was the whole debate going through parliament whether 'deads wifes sister' should or shouldn't be legal, some famous case of inheritence had scandalised the parliamenterians of the day and bought the whole area under intense scrutiny. Eventually they came down in favour of banning it, six months after my ancestors own marriage (so his would have remained legal they did not make it retrospective) This would have then been either 1835 or 1836, going from memory.

OC is right in as much as I remember reading it seems to be one of the laws never obeyed much, with vicars regularly turning a blind eye, which was one of main reasons it was eventually repealed approx 70 years later, so 1907 again sounds about right.

[Little Nell]

It was 1835 but I cannot understand what the reasoning was. After all, many sisters lived with their married siblings.

There wasn't a Deceased Husband's Brother Act.

In any case the law was regularly flouted.

[Richard]

Just looked it up on Gale (trial still working!) and there are quite a few hits over 100. Read a few of them and they confirmed it was outlawed 1835 by William IV. However for some strange reason it does indeed seemed to have been a great source of debate all through the Victorian era, one article alleges in the 12 years after the ban over 1500 such marriages had been made, 5000 children born to them (officialy illegitimate), and over 600 petitions handed in to the government to re legalise it. It regularly seems to have been motioned in the commons, passed but then blocked by the lords.

One writer called it a 'moral indignation' that such marriages were criminlised, another more light heartedly quotes a 'wit', obviously in favour of legalisation too:

"A wit once said he was distinctly in favour of marriage with a deceased wifes sister, because it obviated the dreadful plague of another mother-in-law"

Nice to know the mother in law jokes were alive and well in Victorias Britain!

[Richard]

Nell

Found this:

"Lord Lyndhurst's object in passing the Act of 1835 was primarily to legitimatize the marriage of Lord George Hill, son of the Marquis of Downshire, who had married Miss Knight, sister of his late wife. During the passage of the bill through Parliament this class of marriage was rendered illegal for the future"

This was the case I was trying to remember, that scandalised paliament and led to the ban. It was all to do with inheritence somehow.

It's interesting you say about "deceased husbands brothers act". Its my understanding that while neither scenario is explicitly outlawed in the Bible (which is why so many vicars were happy to turn a blind eye and conduct them), Henry VIII reinterpreted the command "you should not take your brothers wife" to also apply in brothers death as well as life, when he wanted rid of Catherine of Aragon, who was of course was first his dead brother Arthurs wife. I think therefore he DID make those marriages illegal, and they consequently remained so in 1835. Though wifes sister marriages were not similarly illegal, and quite common as you point out, the obvious effect of this was to make their moral status at very least ambiguous and unclear in Church of England.

[Olde Crone Holden]

It has always been my understanding that BOTH were prohibited - dead wife's sister and dead husband's brother, and that whilst the dead wife's sister act was repealed in the the 190?s, the dead wife's brother act wasn't repealed until 1927!

Interesting that in Orthodox Judaism it is/was considered a DUTY for an unmarried brother to marry his brother's widow, in order to protect her, protect his brother's children - and any family wealth of course.

OC