Genealogy Chat

I've got an instance of it in the 1850's.

If it was good enough for King Henry viii to marry his dead brothers wife then where's the problem?

my great aunt marrried her deceased husbands brother.

nudge

Hi Marjorie, Was the second marriage after 1907? Perhaps he married the second wife ater the law was repealed? I won't go into the full story of my family's case here (it's on my 'Family mystery' thread on the general topics board) but I wll say that my learning about this law has opened up an even bigger can of worms! All the same, i needed to resolve this and am very grateful to Helen for helping me fill in the gaps. Sal

A friend of mine, in her late sixties, was devastated to find that her much-loved mother was actually the twin sister of her real mother, who had died giving birth to her. Her father married the sister five months after his wifes death, HER family knew, his didnt! (Not much contact between the families, didnt notice the difference!) It took my friend many years to work this out, she could not understand why her father had TWO marriage certificates, one to Mary May ***, the other to May Mary***(oh, what imagination in naming their twins). She never even suspected the truth until she finally went to the Registrar and asked if it was possible and why, two people would go through a marriage ceremony twice. He was intrigued too, and found the death of her mother and also the births of the twin sisters. She still cannot understand why this was all kept from her but maybe this is the reason. Marjorie

Many thanks to all of you, particularly Helen. That confirmed my suspicions about what happened in my own family, and why the truth was covered up so well--until I started digging! Little did I know what a can of worms I'd opened up by ordering a few certificates! Many thanks again! Sal

There's also the interesting story about Charles Dickens. When he and his wife Catherine set up home together, her younger sister Mary Hogarth lived with them and they all went out as a threesome. When Mary died suddenly, Dickens was grief-stricken and wanted to be buried with her when he died. Another sister, Georgina, came to live with them and became a housekeeper/childcarer. It was a bit of a scandal when Dickens' marriage turned so badly wrong that he walled up the door between his and his wife's room. She was forced to move out with one of her sons, whilst Georgina stayed with Dickens. At this time he was having some kind of relationship with a very young actress, Ellen Ternan and there was a lot of gossip about, but many people thought it was Georgina he was having an affair with. She stayed with Dickens until he died and was a beneficiary in his Will. nell

My Gt Gt grandfather married his wife's sister in 1866, his wife died in 1865. She had lived with them for a long time and I have my doubts about the Father of her two children (she was a spinster) I haven't yet been able to trace their Father/births except on censuses, i wonder if it was my Gt gt grandfather. Hopefully I will get that sorted out one day. Ann Glos

Isn't it interesting - in the great god-fearing Victorian/Edwardian times the law stops you marrying your dead spouses brother/sister - yet Onan was 'smote by God' for not doing the exact same thing when his brother died!!! maggie

Two of my ancestors did marry their dead wives sisters and me and another lady spent a whole day trying to conect our families as she had this man married to one woman me another yet had same surname then found he was married to both married 2nd within weks of first wife dying Karin

Although illegal, I think it was not uncommon. We have even found that a founder member of a Congregational church married his dead wife's sister. Surely the people of the town knew?

My gr gran was Swedish when her first husband died his brother my gr grandad took on his wife but in the UK it was illegal so if they got married over here it would not have been allowed

I have edited this from: Deceased Wife's Sister Act, 1835 - 1907 www.LitEncyc.com Domain: Law, History. Places: England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Britain, Europe. Status: Major. This essay written by Sarah Brown, University of Cambridge The Deceased Wife’s Sister Act was introduced in 1835 to clarify a murky area of British marriage law. The Act ruled that all marriages with one’s deceased wife’s sister which had taken place before 31 August 1835 could not be retracted, but that all subsequent unions of this type were rendered invalid. (Previously these marriages were legal, but could be annulled at any time.) Thus a single day might be all that separated a respectable wife from a mere concubine, though in practice such marriages continued to be celebrated illegally and were frequently tolerated by society. There were, after all, practical reasons why such a union might be desirable. Young spinsters frequently lived with their married sisters, even accompanying them on honeymoon. At a time when death in childbirth was commonplace, many young widowers might find solace – and a kind stepmother for their children – in their sisters-in-law. More than one prominent Victorian had a brush with the Act. A well-known case is that of Holman Hunt who defied the law to marry Edith Waugh, the sister of his late wife Fanny to whom he had been married for less than a year, in 1875. The Act has its roots in Biblical teaching against incest between ‘affines’, or in-laws, and one symptom of the many fictional treatments of the controversy is the apparent association forged, whether consciously or unconsciously, between direct and indirect incest in the writer’s mind. This manifests itself in the tendency to present the children of such unions as tainted or handicapped in some way, an outcome which might more readily be associated with incest between close blood relatives. The Act was finally repealed in 1907. The essay was first published in The Literary Encyclopedia on 21 June 2004. This article is provided by and copyright to ©The Literary Encyclopedia at www.LitEncyc.com. nell

My Dad tells me that it was illegal for a man to marry his dead wife's sister in the early 1900's. Could someone please tell me if this was true, and if so what the name of the law was and when it passed, and when it was changed? I would be very grateful. Many thanks, Sal Just nudging in the hope someone can help me!