Note 46 — Chapter I · Marriage Laws and Customs.
Reading edition
Bryce, “Marriage and Divorce,” III. Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, p. 815.
The statute of the 26’ year of George II., enacted that wedding banns should be regularly published three successive Sundays in the church of the parish where the parties were for the time residing. This statute was passed to prevent the evils of the “Fleet marriages,” during the year 1616, when the Rector of St. James was suspended and clerical men living within the Rules of the Fleet, solicited passers-by for patronage and celebrated marriage ceremonies in ale-houses and garrets, without the publication of banns, or the existence of marriage licenses. Wood’s “Wedding Day in All Ages,” vol. II., page 235.