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dc.contributor.authorProbert, R
dc.date.accessioned2023-06-12T08:25:51Z
dc.date.issued2023-05-30
dc.date.updated2023-06-12T07:21:24Z
dc.description.abstractThe option of getting married in a register office was introduced by the Marriage Act 1836, and over the course of Victoria’s reign over a million couples availed themselves of it. Yet surprisingly little is known about them. This article analyses information about 286 register office weddings celebrated between 1837 and 1901, with examples from 40 counties and 151 different registration districts. It shows that, while those marrying in a register office were drawn from across the social scale and of a median age broadly in line with the national average, brides and grooms from older age groups were overrepresented, reflecting the fact that a higher percentage of marriages in the register office were remarriages for one or both of the parties. Further analysis of their marital histories shows that earlier or subsequent weddings had often taken place in a church, indicating that marriage in a register office cannot be interpreted as evidence of an ideological preference for civil marriage. Some couples chose to marry in a register office because of a desire to keep the wedding private. Others did so because of practical considerations of location, cost, and speed, but these were dependent on the local context and were not static over time. As this indicates, in assessing the reasons for register office weddings, it is important to locate it in the context of an individual’s life history.en_GB
dc.format.extent49-70
dc.identifier.citationVol. 26(1), pp. 49-70en_GB
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1080/14631180.2023.2205736
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10871/133351
dc.identifierORCID: 0000-0002-2998-2613 (Probert, Rebecca)
dc.language.isoenen_GB
dc.publisherRoutledgeen_GB
dc.rights© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.en_GB
dc.subjectregister office weddingsen_GB
dc.subjectcivil marriageen_GB
dc.subjectmarriage formalitiesen_GB
dc.titleAvoiding Attention? Assessing the Reasons for Register Office Weddings in Victorian England and Walesen_GB
dc.typeArticleen_GB
dc.date.available2023-06-12T08:25:51Z
dc.identifier.issn1463-1180
dc.descriptionThis is the final version. Available on open access from Routledge via the DOI in this recorden_GB
dc.identifier.eissn1751-3812
dc.identifier.journalFamily & Community Historyen_GB
dc.relation.ispartofFamily & Community History, 26(1)
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/en_GB
rioxxterms.versionVoRen_GB
rioxxterms.licenseref.startdate2023-05-30
rioxxterms.typeJournal Article/Reviewen_GB
refterms.dateFCD2023-06-12T08:22:45Z
refterms.versionFCDVoR
refterms.dateFOA2023-06-12T08:25:56Z
refterms.panelCen_GB
refterms.dateFirstOnline2023-05-30


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© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
Except where otherwise noted, this item's licence is described as © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.