Double Marriage?

[MUMMYG]

Can anyone help, I have a marriage record in Liverpool that has some latin writing in the margin I can't understand.

I have two records of marriage in Everton
1. Civil reg from Lancashire bmd 3rd quarter 1923 St Benedict C of E John Duffy to Maud Oscroft
2. Parish Register marriages at All Souls RC in November 1925 Joannis Duffy to Matilda Oscroft.

I know Matilda is a variant of the name Maud and Joannis is John
Are they the same people? Is it allowed to marry twice?  I hope for a clue in the latin scrawl in the margin.


I should add that HE was RC don't know about her

[Wexflyer]

Contracted marriage in a non-Catholic church, July 29th, 1923.

[MUMMYG]

So they were married before in a non catholic church, that solves it then. I've just been reading that this is allowed when they have different faiths, well I never knew that. Thank you much 

[arthurk]

So they were married before in a non catholic church, that solves it then. I've just been reading that this is allowed when they have different faiths, well I never knew that. Thank you much 

Bear in mind that the two ceremonies were not equivalent.

The first one, in 1923, would have been a full legal marriage under English law.

However, Roman Catholics might have considered that it wasn't valid under their church law, so another ceremony was required. The 1925 ceremony might have been like a marriage, but as far as the law of the land is concerned, it would have had no effect (hence no second registration).

[MUMMYG]

Yes that's as I understand it thank you. I just didn't know it was allowed.  I am guessing that they married first for the wife and secondly to make it right in gods eyes for the Roman Catholic of Irish descent, perhaps he was goaded by family or priests.

Sorry for the delay I've been transferring over to a new laptop

[CaroleW]

My husband was a practising Catholic & although I was  C of E I was a non-churchgoer

We married in 1968 but had we married in a C of E church he would have been deemed to be “living in sin” by the Catholic Church & for want of a better expression would have  “excommunicated himself by conscience” & not been able to take communion etc

I never converted to Catholicism

However - our marriage in the Catholic church by a priest was not legal in the eyes of the law - we had to be married again officially by a registrar in the vestry after the priest had “married” us in the church!!

[heywood]

Yes that's as I understand it thank you. I just didn't know it was allowed.  I am guessing that they married first for the wife and secondly to make it right in gods eyes for the Roman Catholic of Irish descent, perhaps he was goaded by family or priests.

Sorry for the delay I've been transferring over to a new laptop

He might also have decided himself to ‘make it right’ with no pressure from others - no ‘goading’ necessary.       

[arthurk]

It's not exclusively a Roman Catholic thing, either. I've come across a couple who married in a register office in the first quarter of 1859, with a daughter born that April. Then in July the following year they had a church ceremony - but I can only speculate as to whose decision this might have been.

It's been written up on what looks like a quarterly return form in the manner of a marriage, and inserted in the marriage register, but it includes the words "After having been previously married in the presence of the Registrar....", and the wife's name is given as "(married surname) late (maiden surname)". This ceremony doesn't appear in the GRO indexes, and I only found out about it because the website it's on decided to include it in their index.

[AntonyMMM]

It's not exclusively a Roman Catholic thing, either. I've come across a couple who married in a register office in the first quarter of 1859, with a daughter born that April. Then in July the following year they had a church ceremony - but I can only speculate as to whose decision this might have been.

It's been written up on what looks like a quarterly return form in the manner of a marriage, and inserted in the marriage register, but it includes the words "After having been previously married in the presence of the Registrar....", and the wife's name is given as "(married surname) late (maiden surname)". This ceremony doesn't appear in the GRO indexes, and I only found out about it because the website it's on decided to include it in their index.

Sounds like a vicar knew what he was doing and got things right (which is unusual).

Marriage in a religious ceremony after a previous marriage in a register office is quite common and specifically allowed for in the legislation ( from the Marriage Act 1856 onwards I think)

The second, religious, marriages shouldn't be registered in the civil register and so shouldn't appear in the GRO indexes, but often are and do...thereby causing much confusion and speculation for future researchers.

The church itself can of course keep any record it wants for its own purposes..