Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mop wedding


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Davewild (talk) 17:25, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Mop wedding

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As said at Talk:Jumping the broom by dab:
 * "unfortunately, the "mop wedding" thing may also have been a hoax. Posted in 2008 by an editor whose contributions are basically limited to this item. The article cited the following sources:
 * Brand, John (1849) Observations on the popular antiquities of Great Britain, Henry G Bohn, London.
 * Fiennes, Celia (1947) The Journeys of Celia Fiennes, Cresset Press, London.
 * Maurice, Ashley (1952) England in the Seventeenth Century, Pelican, London.
 * Cobbett, William (1885) Rural Rides, Reeves and Turner, London.
 * Borrow, George Henry (1862) Wild Wales, John Murray, London.
 * Stone, Lawrence (1990) Road to Divorce, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
 * Brand (1849) is accessible online, and it does not contain any material on "mop weddings" which should be enough to give us pause. Likewise, Cobbett (1885) is online here and it does not contain any references to mops. This should be enough to treat the entire thing as a hoax pending confirmation." See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AJumping_the_broom&type=revision&diff=656874839&oldid=656874185

Although User:Andrew Davidson deprodded this article and noted: "Such a source is ", I agree with dab that the sources provided do not support this content and that other reliable sources cannot be found; two sources available online don't even mention mop fairs, let alone mop weddings: https://archive.org/stream/observationsonp07elligoog#page/n0/mode/2up http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34238/34238-h/34238-h.htm

The mention that mop fairs might be somewhere people looked for marriage partners can be mentioned at that article - it does not support the concept of a specific type of wedding associated with mop fairs. I will of course withdraw if significant coverage of "mop weddings" can be found and verified. Fences &amp;  Windows  20:59, 28 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions.  Fences  &amp;  Windows  22:41, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions.  Fences  &amp;  Windows  22:41, 28 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete: Almost certainly a hoax. Completely fails the burden of proof. Hithladaeus (talk) 02:09, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Speedy Delete - I too think it's a hoax, not to mention that the PROD was expired at the time before it was removed. The Snowager -is awake  03:53, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
 * delete but make a note of the "runaway matches" item at the mop fair page. This is a strange case of a "hoax", as it seems to use false references to substantiate something that isn't really false. Here and here are references mentioning the term "Runaway Fair" for a "hiring fair at which runaway matches were made". We don't need a "mop wedding" page to point this out, it is enough just to have the mop fair page take note of it. --dab (𒁳) 05:15, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep/merge I see more sources which indicate that there's something to this. For example, The Victorian Village — "hence it was also known as a 'mop fair'. ... Young workers used the fairs as a good opportunity for match-making, and many a happy marriage had its origin in a meeting at the statute fair."  Geographic School Bulletins — "the Onion Fair at Birmingham, and the picturesque old "Mop Fair" at Stratford-on-Avon. ... The hiring of servants and the settlement of marriage contracts were deals no more out of place on medieval midways  ..."  Merger into mop fair seems a reasonable way forward. Andrew D. (talk) 07:41, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
 * the point is not that people never married at mop fairs, the point is that the term "mop wedding" is completely unsubstantiated, and Wikipedia should try not to establish as "legitimate" terms that did not previously exist... so at best this would become a "non-printworthy redirect". It turns out, though, that the term "runaway match" does exist, and that such "runaway matches" were often made at mop fairs. --dab (𒁳) 11:54, 29 May 2015 (UTC)


 * HOAX - DELETE -- Mop fairs were about hiring servants, not marrying them. I have a copy of Cobbett and have checked its index.  It has one reference to the Marriage Act (Dent Everyman edn 1912, repr. 1941, i, 155), as part of a discussion of turnpikes; the reference is to Clandestine Marriage Act 1753.  I cannot check Fiennes as my copy is only indexed by place (not subject) or Borrow as my copy is not indexed.  Fairs would certainly be means for youngh people to make matches, but "common law marriage" was an exception, based on a promise of marriage followed by living together.  Marriage was the province of the clergy.  Couples would have the banns of marriage read in church on three Sundays, after which they could marry in church.  There may have been a few "peculiar" jurisdictions, where a licence could be obtained quickly.  Otherwise couples had to resort to a journey (run-away) to Scotland where the law was different, noteably Gretna Green.  Merging this to the article on Mop fairs would be to vandalise that (decent) article.  Going before a magistrate is highly improbable: the magistrate would be likely to refer them to the vicar.  His involvement would be more when a clandestine marriage went wrong, when he was called upon to make an affiliation order after the man deserted his "wife".  I do not think the two referneces to runaway matches help: the second refers to Ireland (where the law was - and is - different), whereas they alleged sources all concern England and Wales.   Peterkingiron (talk) 16:10, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
 * nobody suggested "merging" the existing article via copy-paste, because, as you point out, it contains fake references. But I fail to see how it would constitute "vandalism" to add to the mop fair page sourced statements such as "the Mop Fair became something of a marriage market" (Brian Jewell, Fairs and Revels, 1976, p. 22). --dab (𒁳) 09:31, 2 June 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.