Avoiding Attention? Assessing the Reasons for Register Office Weddings in Victorian England and Wales
dc.contributor.author | Probert, R | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2023-06-12T08:25:51Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2023-05-30 | |
dc.date.updated | 2023-06-12T07:21:24Z | |
dc.description.abstract | The 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.extent | 49-70 | |
dc.identifier.citation | Vol. 26(1), pp. 49-70 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.doi | https://doi.org/10.1080/14631180.2023.2205736 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/133351 | |
dc.identifier | ORCID: 0000-0002-2998-2613 (Probert, Rebecca) | |
dc.language.iso | en | en_GB |
dc.publisher | Routledge | en_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.subject | register office weddings | en_GB |
dc.subject | civil marriage | en_GB |
dc.subject | marriage formalities | en_GB |
dc.title | Avoiding Attention? Assessing the Reasons for Register Office Weddings in Victorian England and Wales | en_GB |
dc.type | Article | en_GB |
dc.date.available | 2023-06-12T08:25:51Z | |
dc.identifier.issn | 1463-1180 | |
dc.description | This is the final version. Available on open access from Routledge via the DOI in this record | en_GB |
dc.identifier.eissn | 1751-3812 | |
dc.identifier.journal | Family & Community History | en_GB |
dc.relation.ispartof | Family & Community History, 26(1) | |
dc.rights.uri | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ | en_GB |
rioxxterms.version | VoR | en_GB |
rioxxterms.licenseref.startdate | 2023-05-30 | |
rioxxterms.type | Journal Article/Review | en_GB |
refterms.dateFCD | 2023-06-12T08:22:45Z | |
refterms.versionFCD | VoR | |
refterms.dateFOA | 2023-06-12T08:25:56Z | |
refterms.panel | C | en_GB |
refterms.dateFirstOnline | 2023-05-30 |
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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.