Historical legal minimum ages for marriage?

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Profile	Posted by	Options	Post Date
Member Since: September 2006 Posts: 20 Send Message	Monique	Report	29 Aug 2008 14:05
	Hi. Although a woman (or man) can't get married in England unless they are 16, does anyone know what the previous legal age restrictions were during the 1800s and 1900s? I can't imagine they have changed that often. Thank you. Monique
Member Since: January 2003 Posts: 49,504 Send Message	Shirley~I,m getting the hang of it	Report	29 Aug 2008 14:15
	Yes they were 12 for girls and 14 for boys with parental consent think this went right up to the 1920,s when it was changed to 16
	Researching: Surname Fahse. Germany. Essex .South East London My avatar is one of our wedding photos of 1957
Member Since: September 2006 Posts: 20 Send Message	Monique	Report	29 Aug 2008 14:26
	Hi Shirley, thank you so much for that information.
Member Since: January 2007 Posts: 7,623 Send Message	mgnv	Report	30 Aug 2008 12:39
	Mick in the Sticks is correct - apart from the exclusion of Scotland from the UK - a blacksmith or anyone at all (or even no one) could act as a witness and conduct a marriage ceremony until the late 1920s. The other main difference in ways of legally contracting a marriage (by cohabitation and repute, usually called a common law marriage in England, but it usually implies no legal marriage there) was recently abolished in 2006.