Marriage with Deceased Wife's Sister: Illegal in 1888 in the UK?

[rolt968]

Sometimes you find some curious things researching men killed in World War One!

A man I am researching was born in 1894, the third child of a couple who were married in 1888.

The mother was the sister of her husband's first wife.

I thought that marrying the deceased wife's sister was illegal in 1888. Apparently there was no statute law to that effect in Scotland, but the Scottish Confession (of Faith), introduced at the Reformation did forbid it. Someone tried to introduce a Bill to clarify the situation but the Bill was rejected as unnecessary because it was in the Scots Confession.

The second marriage was by declaration in a city some distance from the couple's home, presumably because a minister would have objected.

By coincidence another man commemorated on the same memorial was an advocate and was famous/ notorious for his legal work on a case about whether it was illegal to have an affair with the deceased wife's sister even after it become legal to marry a deceased wife's sister (1907).

RM

Edited 8 March , 2023 by rolt968

[michaeldr]

An interesting case, and one which reminds me of HSH Mary (aka Victoria) of Teck
She was engaged to the Duke of Clarence, https://europeanroyalhistory.files.wordpress.com/2022/03/princealbertvictor2cdukeofclarenceandavondale3bqueenmarywhenprincessvictoriamaryofteck2c1891.png?w=529

Alas the Duke died before the wedding
Whereupon Mary became engaged to the Duke's brother George
They married, and later became KGV & Queen Mary

Some families lead very complicated lives

[rolt968]

4 hours ago, michaeldr said:

An interesting case, and one which reminds me of HSH Mary (aka Victoria) of Teck
She was engaged to the Duke of Clarence, https://europeanroyalhistory.files.wordpress.com/2022/03/princealbertvictor2cdukeofclarenceandavondale3bqueenmarywhenprincessvictoriamaryofteck2c1891.png?w=529

Alas the Duke died before the wedding
Whereupon Mary became engaged to the Duke's brother George
They married, and later became KGV & Queen Mary

Some families lead very complicated lives

Didn't Henry VIII cite Catherine of Aragon's previous marriage to his brother, Arthur as a reason for the annulment of the marriage (so that he could marry Anne Boleyn).

Soap opera plots are nothing to the things you find if you do a lot of genealogical research!

In this case I must try to see if there is any mention in the kirk session records.

RM

Edited 8 March , 2023 by rolt968

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

16 hours ago, rolt968 said:

I thought that marrying the deceased wife's sister was illegal in 1888.

Seemingly so in the rest of the UK until 1907 :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deceased_Wife's_Sister's_Marriage_Act_1907

[rolt968]

I have come across a similar case. I am beginning to wonder if there was a bit of tolerance of marriage or common law marriage with a deceased wife's sister in the years immediately before 1907.

A man I am researching was the second of four sons of a couple who married in 1891.

The mother died in 1898. The father then had two daughters by his wife's elder sister. There is good reason to believe that the elder sister was at least a livein housekeeper. Both daughters were registered as illegitimate but were born at the home of their father whose name was entered on the birth certificates. Sadly the elder sister (of the first wife) died in 1904. (I can't help feeling that they would have married if she was still alive in 1907.)

The father remarried in 1905 and there were four more children.

RM

Edit: I remember saying to friend a few years ago that soap operas have nothing on what turns up in genealogy.

Edited 16 February by rolt968