Divorce or annulment

[majm]

This is an interesting thread, many thanks for raising it.

And so,   from another perspective or more...

    are the first two marriages conducted by clergy? 

  Could the bride have been giving false info about their own marital status

  do you know if the groom was educated ... would he know what a bachelor meant or would he presume it meant he was not yet a parent

  for a couple to stay together for ONLY a week after marrying ... have you researched what action the brides took to have him return to their marriages

JM

[AntonyMMM]

My understanding (from a chat with a Registrar) is that the term bachelor should not be used where someone was divorced. “Previous marriage dissolved” or, in earlier years, “divorced” should appear in the marital status box. She had never had an annulment but thought that if there was one, that term should appear, not “bachelor”. There are also marriages that are "void ab initio" eg where the couple were legally prohibited from marrying by age, consanguinity, or because at least one of them was not free to marry etc. Such a person probably could describe themselves as a bachelor because there never was a valid marriage.

You have indicated your ancestor described himself as a bachelor in not only his first marriage but at least 2 subsequent marriages.  There’s probably only one conclusion to be drawn from that.

Anthony MMM is often on this board and as I understand it is a former Registrar. Hopefully he'll see this and advise.

An annulment means the marriage is regarded as though it never existed - current GRO guidance would be for "previous marriage annulled" to be entered for marriages annulled (by a court) after 1971, but for those before 1971 then the condition previous to the marriage would be used e.g. bachelor/spinster.

I suspect, that in the early 1900s quite a few couples just walked away from a marriage and treated it as annulled, but without any official process or record.

[dmart7]

AntonyMMM - I suspect you are correct

JM - – questions like yours led me to ask the question here about divorce and annulment in general!  But to answer where I can…..

The first is easy enough.  The 1907 marriage was in a register office.  The second was conducted in a CofE parish church following banns.  In both cases, our miscreant declared fully accurate info.

Can’t be certain, but I am pretty sure that the brides had no secrets and were the innocent parties. I’ve traced them before and after.

Groom’s father was a rural blacksmith, and for a while it looked like son would follow him – until he went into the army instead. Not sure whether we can make assumptions about education from this, but he could read and write, and I would be very surprised if any of this had its source in ignorance.  These two marriages were conducted when he was 20 and 22.  In any event, his later conduct suggests that he knew what he was doing!

Your last question is hard to answer and begs the question, hence my own query about annulment/divorce.  If the brides were abandoned, they would have known about his army service and could surely have gone to his CO.  However, he may not have seemed to have left them so abruptly. In each case, his departure was to an overseas posting, which the brides probably knew about in advance.  In the first case, he departed for South Africa less than two weeks after the marriage. He returned 14 months later, and less than a year after that he was marrying for a second time, seemingly unattached.  A month after the second marriage, he departed for Egypt and then India.  He didn’t return to England until 1921, having just abandoned his third wife and children!  He learned that he could escape by moving country and continent.  He did so again later.

I have researched this extensively over many years using all sources.  While we can never say never, it is unlikely that there is any more out there on what happened to these people.  If there were no divorces or annulments here, we might assume perhaps that the humiliated women chose simply to pretend it never happened, much as AntonyMMM suggests.

A postscript to this part of his story.  Seven weeks after he arrived in South Africa, he contracted gonorrhoea and was hospitalised for a month.  I suspect he got this locally, rather than from his abandoned first wife.

[majm]

Many thanks for answering my questions.   I think you may find that the decision to record his status as bachelor for 2nd marriage could well have been made by the clergyman.  They had (and still have)  broad understanding and encourage formal marriage over  de facto relationships.  You mention his movement overseas .... and thus outside the geographical boundaries of the English marriage Acts... perhaps there's a partial explanation there too. 

JM. 

[jorose]

In each case, his departure was to an overseas posting, which the brides probably knew about in advance.

I think I see a pattern here, and it's "We need to marry now because I'm about to be posted overseas"
Did he give full regimental detail on the marriages or just say his occupation as "soldier"? Perhaps he didn't leave them with enough info to follow up with the forces, especially if his name was relatively common.

On the side of the abandoned wives, far more socially acceptable to pick either "widow" (if children) or "spinster" (if not) than try to institute legal proceedings.  They wouldn't have been able to do anything about it for a some time anyway - leaving on a planned army deployment wouldn't be considered abandonment.

[dmart7]

On those marriages, he filled in the details correctly, identifying the Dragoon Guards.  Indeed, he correctly identified the 7th  Dragoons on the 1907 marriage and and then 4th Dragoons at the 1909 one.  However, in each case, his overseas departures  shortly afterwards coincided with his switch from one regiment to the other, and back again.  It is easy to suggest that the switch helped him cover his tracks, but it wouldn't alone be enough. As you say, the question of abandonment wouldn't necessarily have arisen until later - perhaps a year or more.

This is all a bit speculative but it is just possible that the wives didn't know he was going away.  For example, in 1907 his bride would have known he was in the 7th Dragoons.  But when he departed a few weeks later he had, on that day, transferred to the departing unit the 4th Dragoons.  The same happened in 1909 (4th back to 7th) with wife No. 2.  And knowing how he conducted the rest of his life, I can't rule out the possibility that these were were planned not coincidence, ie. he sought an overseas posting and was able to switch to the regiment that was going!.  Either way, it seems likely that he didn't write to his new wives or, at some point stopped doing so. If they chased him through the army, they would have contacted the wrong unit, initially at least. 

As you suggest, it remains most likely that the abandoned wives (and their families) concluded that it was better to simply pretend that the first marriage never happened and get on with their lives.