Secular or Sacred? The Ambiguity of 'Civil' Marriage in the Marriage Act 1836

The Marriage Act 1836 is usually described as introducing ‘civil marriage’ in England and Wales. Yet scholars are divided as to whether ‘civil’ only denotes a marriage in a register office or can also include those in registered places of worship. This reflects the fundamental ambiguity of the 1836 Act. This article will show how that ambiguity had its roots in the claims that marriage was a ‘civil contract’, advanced by Dissenters as part of their campaign for reform, with such claims being made in support of very different potential reforms. It explains how the 1836 Act sought to accommodate these different demands by saying nothing about the nature of marriages celebrated in register offices or registered places of worship, and how – at least in the first twenty years of the Act’s operation – couples had a choice as to how secular, or how sacred, these different forms might be.