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2024 Week 18: Love and Marriage #52Ancestorsin52Weeks

According to church parish records, my 4 x great grandparents on my direct paternal line, John McAra and Ann Angus were married on the second of July 1768 in Cramond. However, the Kirk Session minutes provide a little more detail than the actual date of the marriage.

Extract from Kirk Session minutes:

"After prayer, Sederunt the Reverend Doctor Gilbert Hamilton, Moderator, Messrs. Cleghorn, John Hay and John Black, Elders, John McAra and Ann Angus, both of this Parish, after Citation compeared* and acknowledged their irregular marriage and produced their lines dated the 2 of July 1786 at Edinburgh"

* compeared is legal term in Scots Law meaning to appear in court personally or by attorney. In this case the couple appeared in person.

So John and Ann had been involved in an 'irregular marriage'. At this time there were three types of irregular marriages in Scotland, all legal, but not marriages in the eyes of the church. The first type was the couple making a declaration of consent to each other, sometimes in front of witnesses, sometimes not. The second type involved a promise of future marriage which was then followed at some time later by the couple having sex. The third type of irregular marriage was also referred to as 'common law', the couple living together as man and wife, by 'habit and repute'.

The Kirk Session usually became involved when witnesses came forward, when the couple confessed or when they had decided to investigate their parishioners themselves. It is not known what happened in the case of John and Ann. However, there had obviously been some 'hanky-panky' involved as the Kirk Session records state:

"The Moderator sharply rebuked them for their irregularity and, after seriously admonishing them to Repentance and an Amendment for the future, dismissed them."

The 'Amendment referred to is a fine which the couple had to pay.

Irregular marriages were lawful in Scotland until 1939, with the age of consent being 12 for a girl and 14 for a boy. At the time of their irregular marriage, John and Ann were both 19. They went on to have eight children, two of whom I have written about before, my 3 x great grandfather Alexander McAra and his brother James. (The trial of James McAra)


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