Banns of marriage
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The banns of marriage, commonly known simply as "the banns", (from an Old English word meaning "to summon") are the public announcement in a parish church that a marriage is going to take place between two specified persons.
The purpose of banns is to enable anyone to raise any legal impediment to it, so as to prevent marriages that are legally invalid, either under canon law or under civil law. Impediments vary between legal jurisdictions, but would normally include a pre-existing marriage (having been neither dissolved nor annulled), a vow of celibacy, lack of consent, or the couple's being related within the prohibited degrees of kinship.
In England, under the provisions of Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act, a marriage is only legally valid if the reading of the banns has taken place or a marriage licence has been obtained. By this 1753 statute, 26 Geo. II, c. xxxviij, the banns are required to be read aloud in church over a period of three Sundays prior to the actual wedding ceremony. Banns must be read in the parish church of both parties to the marriage, as well as in the church where the marriage ceremony is to take place (where this is different). Omission of this formality renders the marriage void. Prior to this law, it was possible for eloping couples to marry clandestinely in various places—finding an imprisoned clergyman in the Fleet Prison was one well known way (a "Fleet Marriage"), at least for couples near London. After the law, elopers had to leave England, usually for Scotland, and proverbially, to the village of Gretna Green, in order to contract a marriage while avoiding these formalities. These details often figure in melodramatic literature set in the period.
In Ontario, the publication of banns remains a legal alternative to seeking a marriage license. A same-sex couple attempted to marry this way at the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto in 1999, since the province was not then issuing marriage licences to same-sex couples. The marriage was ruled valid in 2003. See Same-sex marriage in Canada.
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