Uncertain Unions Marriage in England, 1660-1753

Shows, in absorbing detail, how courting and marrying couples before the 1753 Marriage Act manoeuvred around the ambiguities of the law, and how they sometimes became entangled in a web of moral and legal contradiction leading to personal catastrophe. The case-histories tell of unwise courtship, prenuptial pregnancies, forced marriages by parents of parish officials, bigamy, and clandestine marriages performed in haste and repented at leisure.