<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><p>While marriages were supposed to be celebrated publicly by priests, in churches where the parties were known, many couples had reasons -- among them parental disapproval, religious nonconformity, property considerations and previous entanglements -- to marry in other ways. Nor was this difficult where there was no unified marriage code, where a simple exchange of vows might constitute a valid marriage, and where unbeneficed priests were prepared to perform the ceremony in return for a drink. <p/>Clandestine marriage had represented a problem to the church and state, and to the rights of property, since the middle ages, eluding a variety of attempts to control it. By the eighteenth century it had become a scandal, with Fleet parsons marrying thousands of couples a year. In 1753 Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act nullified such irregular marriages, only to drive them to adopt other guises until the introduction of civil marriage in 1836. <p/>In this intriguing book Brian Outhwaite explores the nature and scale of clandestine marriage. He describes why it attracted so many customers and why it was so hard to suppress. <i>Clandestine Marriage in England, 1500-1850</i> provides a new perspective on a central social and religious institution.</p>
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