Talk:Clandestine Marriages Act 1753

Modern Misinterpretations
The section of the main page entitled "Modern Misinterpretations" says that Lawrence Stone's Road to Divorce, on p. 132, interprets the Act as voiding any marriages of a minor without parental consent whereas the Act actually voided only those marriages of minors without parental consent that were celebrated by licence. I have not read the Act, but I have read Stone,and he does not say this on p. 132, where his main topic is the annulment of marriages on account of trivial errors in the wording of licenses or banns as to age. If Stone says this elsewhere, the citation should be corrected. If he says it nowhere, as I think is the case, the criticism should be deleted. I assume, of course, that the section's account of the Act's requirements is correct.Ellen Stanley (talk) 23:32, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm quite concerned about this section. It seems to really come out swinging on "incorrect" takes on "common-law marriage", apparently based entirely on two sources both by the same (UK) legal scholar.  This seems (to this non-lawyer) to contradict what's said in Marriage law, and be problematic in the light of these being an established legal fact in "the colonies", on the basis of definitive court findings to that effect.  The article common law marriage itself seems to be a self-contradictory mishmash, saying in one place that 'common-law marriages continued to be recognized in the future United States and Canada', and later, 'In fact, neither the name nor the concept of "common law marriage" was known at this time.'  I've no idea which of these is (the more) "correct", but it seems to be that in each place in each article we should be trying to better-balance the range of available sources.  84.203.32.187 (talk) 02:27, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Have to agree with the above, it seems heavily biased towards one scholar's views, and apparently as self-described they're views for which there isn't a wide scholarly consensus for. The phrasing is also far too undefined 'Prior to the passage of the 1753 Act' covers all of history and time before that date, that's inherently inaccurate as an assertion.Number36 (talk) 10:13, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

The Marriage Act article also describes the 1753 Act as having "abolished common-law marrage" where it links to this article. One of the two must therefore be wrong; I don't think it gives a particularly good impression for Wikipedia to be contradicting itself. (My guess would be that the act abolished what was later described/thought of as ‘common law marriage’, but that the term perhaps wasn’t used at the time; i.e., it’s an anachronism but a useful explanation in a modern context.) aaltotoukka (talk) 09:07, 19 May 2020 (UTC)