Reading the Regency

Marriage in Scotland

"Dear Fanny,--You know our present wretchedness. May God support you under your share! We have been here two days, but there is nothing to be done. They cannot be traced. You may not have heard of the last blow-- Julia's elopement; she is gone to Scotland with Yates. She left London a few hours before we entered it."
[Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen]

The laws in Scotland differed from those in England and Wales, regarding marriage. The minimum age for marriage during the Regency period was 12 for females and 14 for males. Most importantly, they didn't require the consent of parents at all.

The other benefit of a marriage in Scotland was speed. During the Regency period there was no requirement to be resident for any length of time. (The law wasn't changed until 1856, from which time they required a 21 day residency)

Although the Church of Scotland required marriage ceremonies to take place in church, following the calling of banns, it was legal for anyone to be married anywhere without the assistance of a clergyman. Any couple could be legally married simply by pledging themselves to each other and proclaiming themselves married in the presence of a third person.

The only additional requirement in Scotland was that a marriage had to be consummated to be legally complete.

Even if the bride and groom wished to be married in church, the calling of the banns in Scotland offered no serious delay. For a small fee the clergyman would call the banns three times on the same Sunday, and save the couple two weeks of waiting.

Another important difference between English and Scottish marriages was how they affected children born out of wedlock. In England, a child born to unmarried parents would never be legitimised by their later marriage, particularly from the perspective of inheritance. In Scotland, if an unmarried couple had children, a wedding at any time would make those children legitimate offspring, with all the usual rights of inheritance, as long as the parents had been free to marry at the time of their births. (i.e. not already married to someone else)

The legality of these verbal marriage declarations in Scotland was tested in 1815, as this extract from The National Recorder shows:

"[Mr.] Mc Adam, a gentleman of very large fortune in Ayrshire, kept a mistress in his house for many years, and had children by her. One morning he called the servants into the room where he and his mistress were at breakfast, and taking her by the hand, declared in their presence that she was his wife-the same day he shot himself. The question therefore rested, whether this was a valid marriage, and consequently the children legitimate? And upon the decision of this question depended the succession to the real estate of 10,000l per ann[um]. The result was that the marriage was pronounced to be valid, by which decision it may be considered as finally established, that, by the law of Scotland as it at present stands, a mere verbal declaration of marriage by the parties themselves, deliberately made in the presence of witnesses, constitutes a valid marriage, provable by the testimony of the witnesses, without any writing, or other ceremony, civil or ecclesiastical."

For many couples denied the chance to marry in England, their best option was to elope and travel north of the border-particularly minors, whose parents had refused (or might refuse) their consent.

Elopements were frowned upon by society, and it was seen as a poor beginning to a marriage. This flouting of parental authority also brought a degree of shame upon the families of the couple, and it wasn't unknown for parents to disinherit or renounce a daughter who had eloped to Scotland and married against their express wishes.