Not really. I was responding to the proposition that an 18 and a 16 year old would need to falsify their ages to be married. This is certainly not the case, as long as consent was available, and among ordinary folk, it would be readily so. Look at the records: 16 year old brides are common. The utility of Gretna Green was strictly limited to society flibbertigibbets (think Paris Hilton or Britney Spears) where there was a need to escape parental control; you have to take into account that no society marriage was possible for anyone without consent no matter what the ages of the participants. Ordinary folk had no need of such shenanigans, or access to them, in fact. I don't think we have seen a good definition of "full age" - I certainly don't think I have seen one. The nearest we have is a kind of a feeling that it might be the age where children throw off the governance of their parents. I am sure someone here can provide the definitive information we need, and so I turn it over to the collective knowledge of the list. What do you say? Peter Michael Lightfoot wrote: > Peter McGuinness wrote: > >> No subterfuge required: marriage at 16 was, and is, legal in England >> with parental consent. In all the English census returns, the marital >> status is left blank unless the individual is 16 or over, after which it >> is completed; the assumption being that anyone under 16 is automatically >> single but after that you need to specify. >> I have a feeling the parish priest would usually need no proof of age - >> he would already know! >> >> > But you have missed the point. "Of full age" meant parental permission > was NOT required. The fact that Patricia's marriage cert says that, yet > they weren't over 21 would be prima facie evidence that they DIDN'T have > parental permission. It certainly happened. I have several cases in my > parish record transcriptions where the same situation applied. > > And then there was Gretna Green... > >

I do think the general consensus was that 'full age' was taken to mean at least 21. Obviously we know there were those who married before that age so my own advice to anyone would be to keep an open mind, as with any research in Ireland, whether it be name/place spelling or anything else. There are some cases, when we cannot get the official proof, where we may just never know something for sure. For myself, I will continue to take 'full age' as 21 or over and if I find out different then it's a bonus. So many different scenarios to take into consideration I think would scramble my brain otherwise. Claire www.claires-rosleaancestry.co.uk -----Original Message----- From: nir-down-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:nir-down-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Peter McGuinness Sent: 15 January 2008 07:30 To: michael.lightfoot@canb.auug.org.au; nir-down@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [NIR-DOWN] James CROSKERY and Margaret SLOAN Not really. I was responding to the proposition that an 18 and a 16 year old would need to falsify their ages to be married. This is certainly not the case, as long as consent was available, and among ordinary folk, it would be readily so. Look at the records: 16 year old brides are common. The utility of Gretna Green was strictly limited to society flibbertigibbets (think Paris Hilton or Britney Spears) where there was a need to escape parental control; you have to take into account that no society marriage was possible for anyone without consent no matter what the ages of the participants. Ordinary folk had no need of such shenanigans, or access to them, in fact. I don't think we have seen a good definition of "full age" - I certainly don't think I have seen one. The nearest we have is a kind of a feeling that it might be the age where children throw off the governance of their parents. I am sure someone here can provide the definitive information we need, and so I turn it over to the collective knowledge of the list. What do you say? Peter Michael Lightfoot wrote: > Peter McGuinness wrote: > >> No subterfuge required: marriage at 16 was, and is, legal in England >> with parental consent. In all the English census returns, the marital >> status is left blank unless the individual is 16 or over, after which it >> is completed; the assumption being that anyone under 16 is automatically >> single but after that you need to specify. >> I have a feeling the parish priest would usually need no proof of age - >> he would already know! >> >> > But you have missed the point. "Of full age" meant parental permission > was NOT required. The fact that Patricia's marriage cert says that, yet > they weren't over 21 would be prima facie evidence that they DIDN'T have > parental permission. It certainly happened. I have several cases in my > parish record transcriptions where the same situation applied. > > And then there was Gretna Green... > > ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to NIR-DOWN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message