Rebecca Probert
Biographic Data
| ID | 313466 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rebecca Probert |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rebecca |
| FAMILY NAME | Probert |
| SIGNATURE | PROBERT R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Exeter |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2998-2613 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 43 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 33 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 39 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Independent Celebrant-Led Wedding Ceremonies: Translating, Tweaking, and Innovating Traditions
This article explores ceremonial design of independent celebrant-led wedding ceremonies in England and Wales. It draws on a qualitative study which involved focus groups with celebrants and interviews with individuals who have had an independent celebrant-led wedding ceremony. Six factors are described which influenced how couples translated and tweaked traditions or innovated ceremonial elements: faith, heritage, values, kin, informality, and te…
Avoiding Attention? Assessing the Reasons for Register Office Weddings in Victorian England and Wales
The option of getting married in a register office was introduced by the Marriage Act 1836, and over the course of Victoria’s reign over a million couples availed themselves of it. Yet surprisingly little is known about them. This article analyses information about 286 register office weddings celebrated between 1837 and 1901, with examples from 40 counties and 151 different registration districts. It shows that, while those marrying in a registe…
Rites and Wrongs: Anglican Ceremonies after Legal Weddings, 1837–57
The Marriage Act 1836 marked an important change in the rites required for a valid marriage, allowing couples to marry in a register office or registered place of worship. For some, however, these unfamiliar rites did not constitute a marriage at all, and in the early 1850s a particular controversy emerged regarding Anglican clergymen who ‘remarried’ couples who had already been legally married under the 1836 Act. This article examines three case…
Fifty Years of the Divorce Reform Act 1969
The enactment of the Divorce Reform Act 1969 was a landmark moment in family law. Coming into force in 1971, it had a significant impact on legal practice and was followed by a dramatic increase in divorce rates, reflecting changes in social attitudes. This new interdisciplinary collection explores the background to the 1969 Act and its influence on law and society. Bringing together scholars from law, sociology, history, demography, literature a…
The Importance of Being Authorized: The Genesis, Limitations, and Legacy of the Marriage Act 1898
Every place of worship that is registered for weddings is able to appoint its own ‘authorised person’ to replace the civil registrar who would otherwise be required to attend weddings there. Nonetheless, 120 years after this option was first introduced by the Marriage Act 1898, there are still many places of worship with no authorised person. With provisional proposals for an officiant-based system having been put forward by the Law Commission, i…
Escaping detection: Illegal second marriages and the crime of bigamy
Official statistics on the number of prosecutions for bigamy clearly cannot be taken as an accurate guide to the number who went through a ceremony of marriage with a second ‘spouse’ while still married to their first. Nonetheless, when we compare those who were prosecuted with those who were not, the differences that emerge should make us cautious in assuming that the offence was common. There is evidence to suggest that many of the unprosecuted…
Postponing the day of your dreams? Modern weddings and the impact of Covid-19
COVID-19-related restrictions had an enormous impact on weddings in 2020. For three months, weddings were effectively prohibited, and requirements for social distancing, hand-sanitising and face coverings existed throughout England and Wales for the rest of the year. In August 2020, we conducted a survey of couples who were planning to marry between March and December 2020. This article focuses on how many respondents had postponed their wedding,…
Trying to get a piece of paper from City Hall? The availability, accessibility, and administration of the register office wedding
In principle, it is possible for a couple to get married in a register office in England or Wales for £127 (including the cost of giving notice and a certificate). In this article, we draw on empirical research to show how limited this option is in practice. Its availability is constrained by the scarcity of register offices limited slots for weddings, and the addition of other fees not provided for in the regulations. Its accessibility is often …
Secular or Sacred? The Ambiguity of ‘Civil’ Marriage in the Marriage Act 1836
This is the final version. Available on open access from Routledge via the DOI in this record
Interpreting choices: What can we infer from where our ancestors married
This article analyses a sample of 1,052 weddings reported by family historians as taking place between 1837 and 1952 in order to build up a picture of the characteristics of those marrying in a register office or registered place of worship under the Marriage Act 1836. It situates this data in the context of the national-level statistics in order to provide a more nuanced picture of the religious affiliation of those marrying in a registered plac…
Love in the time of Covid-19: A case-study of the complex laws governing weddings
During 2020, weddings were profoundly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. During periods of lockdown few weddings could take place, and even afterwards restrictions on how they could be celebrated remained. To investigate the impact of such restrictions, we carried out a survey of those whose plans to marry in England and Wales had been affected by Covid-19. The 1,449 responses we received illustrated that the ease and speed with which couples had…
Tying the Knot: The Formation of Marriage 1836–2020
The Marriage Act 1836 established the foundations of modern marriage law, allowing couples to marry in register offices and non-Anglican places of worship for the first time. Rebecca Probert draws on an exceptionally wide range of primary sources to provide the first detailed examination of marriage legislation, social practice, and their mutual interplay, from 1836 through to the unanticipated demands of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. She analys…
Cohabitation and Religious Marriage: Status, Similarities and Solutions
Cohabiting couples and those entering religious-only marriages all too often end up with inadequate legal protection when the relationship ends. Yet, despite this shared experience, the linkages and overlaps between these two groups have largely been ignored in the legal literature. Based on wide-ranging empirical studies, this timely book brings together scholars working in both areas to explore the complexities of the law, the different ways in…
Cohabitation and Religious Marriage: Status, Similarities and Solutions
In recent years, there has been a rise in both the number of cohabiting couples and those entering into religious-only marriages in England and Wales. Cohabitants are the fastest- growing relationship type, numbering 3.4 million (ONS, 2019), while up to 60 per cent of Muslim couples marrying are thought to be in religious-only marriages (True Vision, 2017). Although these relationship types are conceptually different, with the parties having dive…
Samantha Williams, Unmarried motherhood in the metropolis, 1700–1850: Pregnancy, the poor law and provision (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Pages xv + 270. £79.99 hardback; £63.99 ebook. SamanthaW…
Samantha Williams, Unmarried motherhood in the metropolis, 1700–1850: pregnancy, the poor law and provision (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Pages xv + 270. £79.99 hardback; £63.99 ebook. - Volume 34 Issue 1
The Transportation of Bigamists in Early-Nineteenth-Century England and Wales
Between 1795 and 1853, over 250 men and women were sentenced to transportation for committing the crime of bigamy. This harsh treatment is at odds with the assumption that the sentences handed down to bigamists were generally light. This article provides the first in-depth study of the use of transportation in this context, drawing on the criminal registers, the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, and local and national newspaper reports in order to a…
Informal Muslim Marriages: Regulations and Contestations
This special issue of the OJLR focuses on informal religious-only marriages occurring within Muslim communities in various jurisdictions with differing traditions of marriage and state regulation. It is widely accepted that religious marriages are entered by Muslims seeking to embark on a religiously lawful intimate relationship.1 In general, a religious-only marriage usually2 results in the parties not benefitting from state legal protections av…
The Legal Treatment of Islamic Marriage Ceremonies
The extent and status of religious-only marriages in England and Wales has attracted considerable attention in recent years and generated a number of proposals for reform. Yet, any discussion of what the law should be needs to be grounded in a clear understanding of the existing framework, in order to assess what is currently problematic and what needs to change. This article accordingly analyses the scope for entering into a legally binding reli…
Contextualizing Muslim Religious-Only Marriages
This special issue focuses on Muslim religious-only marriages, which are marriages not recognized by state authorities but which at least one of the parties involved considers religiously valid. The practice of informal religious marriages has manifested in different parts of the world, and such marriages have become a topic of debate and intervention. In a tripartite dynamic, state authorities are involved in attempts to regulate or criminalize …
Evaluating marital stability in late-Victorian Camberwell
What was the extent of marital breakdown and separation in a society where divorce was unlikely to be an option? This article investigates the status and longevity of the marriages of a group of parents whose children were admitted to the care of the poor law authorities in Camberwell in the latter part of the nineteenth century. It finds that spousal death or misfortune, rather than marital breakdown, were the primary reasons for a parent to sen…
Strange Bedfellows: Marriage in the Age of Women’s Liberation
In this fascinating book, Lefkovitz charts the gradual thinning of the obligations of marriage in the United States and the impact that this has had on poorer members of society and on immigrant sp
Cohabitation and marriage in England and Wales
Over the last 50 years, marriage in England and Wales has shifted from near-universality to being merely one option. A ‘marriage divide’ has emerged, with the likelihood of marriage being affected by education and income. While few of those marrying cite economic or legal factors as a motivation, the perceived need to attain a certain level of financial security may delay marriage for others, and minor financial incentives such as transferable ta…
Cohabitation and Non-Marital Births in England and Wales, 1600–2012
Today, cohabiting relationships account for most births outside marriage. But what was the situation in earlier centuries? Bringing together leading historians, demographers and lawyers, this interdis
How to Create the Perfect Wife: Georgian Britain's most ineligible bachelor and his quest to cultivate the ideal womanWendy Moore
"How to Create the Perfect Wife: Georgian Britain's most ineligible bachelor and his quest to cultivate the ideal womanWENDY MOORE." Women's History Review, 23(3), pp. 502–503
Westmorland Weddings: A Study of the 1787 Census
There has been much speculation about marriage practices in 18th century England, and many commentators have assumed that cohabitation was common, particularly among the lower orders. More recent work on southern parishes has, however, suggested that formal marriage was the norm, and cohabitation vanishingly rare, both before and after the passage of the Clandestine Marriages Act of 1753. This article sets out to test whether that conclusion hold…
Responsible Parents and Parental Responsibility
This book examines the idea of ‘parental responsibility’ in English law and what is expected of a responsible parent. The scope of ‘parental responsibility’, a key concept in family law, is undefined and often ambiguous. Yet, to date, more attention has been paid to how individuals acquire parental responsibility than to the question of the rights, powers, duties and responsibilities they have once they obtain it. This book redresses the balance …
Regulating Marriage and Cohabitation: Changing Family Values and Policies in Europe and North America—An Introductory Critique
The inspiration for this special issue came from our observation that the British and American approaches to family policy in general, and to marriage and cohabitation in particular, set them apart from their closest neighbors in Europe and North America, respectively. While certain demographic trends can be observed across the Western world, the response of Britain and the United States to such trends differs significantly from that of other jur…
Cohabitation in Twentieth Century England and Wales: Law and Policy
This article reviews the complex, and sometimes conflicting, policies adopted by the law of England and Wales over the course of the twentieth century. Its aim is to highlight the fact that cohabitation is not merely a modern legal issue, but one with which both the legislature and the courts have had to grapple for decades. It argues that reform has been piecemeal and context‐specific because the courts and legislature have not adopted a coheren…
The Judicial Interpretation of Lord Hardwicke's Act 1753
It has been claimed that the courts interpreted Lord Hardwicke's Act strictly and that any deviation from the form prescribed by the statute rendered the marriage void. A closer examination of the cases reveals that the courts in fact took a more purposive approach. There was a strong presumption in favour of marriage. Where the marriage was one that had subsisted for a long time, the courts’ approach made it difficult to prove non-compliance wit…
Postponing the day of your dreams? Modern weddings and the impact of Covid-19
COVID-19-related restrictions had an enormous impact on weddings in 2020. For three months, weddings were effectively prohibited, and requirements for social distancing, hand-sanitising and face coverings existed throughout England and Wales for the rest of the year. In August 2020, we conducted a survey of couples who were planning to marry between March and December 2020. This article focuses on how many respondents had postponed their wedding,…
The Impact Of The Marriage Act Of 1753: "Was It Really "A Most Cruel Law For The Fair Sex
It has been argued that the Marriage Act of 1753, which put the law of marriage in England and Wales on a statutory basis, was a harsh measure that caused hardship to women, who were thereby deprived of the protection offered by the previous law. This essay challenges this view, showing that the formalities prescribed by the Act were hardly novel, and had been observed even when they were not essential to the validity of a marriage, while the pro…
Contextualizing Muslim Religious-Only Marriages
This special issue focuses on Muslim religious-only marriages, which are marriages not recognized by state authorities but which at least one of the parties involved considers religiously valid. The practice of informal religious marriages has manifested in different parts of the world, and such marriages have become a topic of debate and intervention. In a tripartite dynamic, state authorities are involved in attempts to regulate or criminalize …
Equality in the Family Home: Stack v. Dowden [2007] U.K.H.L. 17
Same-Sex Couples and the Marriage Model
From lack of status to contract: Assessing the French Pacte Civil de Solidarité
It has been suggested that the nature of marriage could be varied by private contract. In France a similar effect has been achieved by allowing couples to enter into an institution delimited by law but regulated by contract. Thousands of cohabiting couples have chosen to register a Pacte Civil de Solidarité . This suggests a strong desire for a real alternative to marriage and raises important issues about commitment in modern relationships. It i…
When are we married? Void, non-existent and presumed marriages
In recent years the courts have been faced with the problem of deciding what status should be given to marriages that are celebrated outside the provisions of the Marriage Act 1949 yet believed to be valid by the parties to them. Some such marriages have been classified as non-marriages, while others have been saved by the application of the presumption in favour of marriage. The decisions are unsatisfactory for a number of reasons. It will be su…
The Judicial Interpretation of Lord Hardwicke's Act 1753
It has been claimed that the courts interpreted Lord Hardwicke's Act strictly and that any deviation from the form prescribed by the statute rendered the marriage void. A closer examination of the cases reveals that the courts in fact took a more purposive approach. There was a strong presumption in favour of marriage. Where the marriage was one that had subsisted for a long time, the courts’ approach made it difficult to prove non-compliance wit…
Regulating Marriage and Cohabitation: Changing Family Values and Policies in Europe and North America—An Introductory Critique
The inspiration for this special issue came from our observation that the British and American approaches to family policy in general, and to marriage and cohabitation in particular, set them apart from their closest neighbors in Europe and North America, respectively. While certain demographic trends can be observed across the Western world, the response of Britain and the United States to such trends differs significantly from that of other jur…
Cohabitation in Twentieth Century England and Wales: Law and Policy
This article reviews the complex, and sometimes conflicting, policies adopted by the law of England and Wales over the course of the twentieth century. Its aim is to highlight the fact that cohabitation is not merely a modern legal issue, but one with which both the legislature and the courts have had to grapple for decades. It argues that reform has been piecemeal and context‐specific because the courts and legislature have not adopted a coheren…
Same-Sex Couples and the Marriage Model
Chinese whispers and Welsh weddings
It has been claimed that in the late eighteenth century sixty per cent of couples in the Welsh village of Llansantffraid Glyn Ceiriog married by jumping over a broomstick, and a number of commentators have inferred that informal marriage was widespread in this period. Yet an examination of the primary and secondary sources shows that both the initial claim and subsequent speculations are based on ‘Chinese whispers’ rather than evidence. This cast…
The Impact Of The Marriage Act Of 1753: "Was It Really "A Most Cruel Law For The Fair Sex
It has been argued that the Marriage Act of 1753, which put the law of marriage in England and Wales on a statutory basis, was a harsh measure that caused hardship to women, who were thereby deprived of the protection offered by the previous law. This essay challenges this view, showing that the formalities prescribed by the Act were hardly novel, and had been observed even when they were not essential to the validity of a marriage, while the pro…
Equality in the Family Home: Stack v. Dowden [2007] U.K.H.L. 17
R v Millis reconsidered: Binding contracts and bigamous marriages
The 1844 decision of the House of Lords in R v Millis – which apparently held that the presence of an episcopally ordained minister had been necessary to create a valid marriage even before legislation was introduced to regulate the formation of marriage – has universally been regarded as erroneous by generations of scholars. This paper shows that the outcome of the case was in fact correct, even though the reasoning of all but one of the judges …
The impact of the Clandestine Marriages Act: Three case-studies in conformity
This article examines the extent of compliance with the Clandestine Marriages Act 1753 through three parish studies. It demonstrates that the vast majority of the sample cohort of parents whose children were baptized in church, and indeed of couples living together, had married in church as required by the 1753 Act, and shows how the proportion of marriages traced rises as more information about the parties becomes available. Through a study of s…
Cohabitation: Current Legal Solutions
This paper considers the arguments that have been advanced to justify giving cohabitants the same rights as married couples, and suggests a number of reasons for caution: first, the fact that these are uncharted waters, given the relative novelty of cohabitation as a family form; secondly, the evidence that suggests that a ‘functional’ approach may actually justify rules privileging marriage; and, thirdly, the indications that the law may indeed …
Control over Marriage in England and Wales, 1753–1823: The Clandestine Marriages Act of 1753 in Context
It is a belief almost universally shared that the Clandestine Marriages Act of 1753 gave parents absolute control over the marriages of their minor children, and that a failure to obtain parental consent rendered a marriage void. For almost seventy years this Act was in force, from its implementation on March 25, 1754, until it was repealed by the Marriage Act 1823. In this same period historians have discerned the rise of the affective family, c…
Responsible Parents and Parental Responsibility
This book examines the idea of ‘parental responsibility’ in English law and what is expected of a responsible parent. The scope of ‘parental responsibility’, a key concept in family law, is undefined and often ambiguous. Yet, to date, more attention has been paid to how individuals acquire parental responsibility than to the question of the rights, powers, duties and responsibilities they have once they obtain it. This book redresses the balance …
The Changing Legal Regulation of Cohabitation: From Fornicators to Family, 1600–2010
This book has three key aims: first, to show how the legal treatment of cohabiting couples has changed over the past four centuries, from punishment as fornicators in the seventeenth century to eventual acceptance as family in the late twentieth; second, to chart how the language used to refer to cohabitation has changed over time and how different terms influenced policy debates and public perceptions; and, third, to estimate the extent of cohab…
Broken Engagements: The Action for Breach of Promise of Marriage and the Feminine Ideal, 1800–1940
Broken Engagements: The Action for Breach of Promise of Marriage and the Feminine Ideal, 1800–1940. SASKIA LETTMAIER. Oxford. Oxford University Press. 2010. xii+ 209. Hardback. £65. ISBN 978 0 19 9
Westmorland Weddings: A Study of the 1787 Census
There has been much speculation about marriage practices in 18th century England, and many commentators have assumed that cohabitation was common, particularly among the lower orders. More recent work on southern parishes has, however, suggested that formal marriage was the norm, and cohabitation vanishingly rare, both before and after the passage of the Clandestine Marriages Act of 1753. This article sets out to test whether that conclusion hold…
JensScherpe, Marital Agreements and Private Autonomy in Comparative Perspective, Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2012, 532 pp, hb £75.00
Bentham, Law and Marriage: A Utilitarian Code of Law in Historical Contexts
Bentham, Law and Marriage: A Utilitarian Code of Law in Historical Contexts. MARY SOKOL. London. Continuum International Publishing Group. 2011. x + 195. Hardback. £65. ISBN 978 1 4411 3293 2. The
Cohabitation and Non-Marital Births in England and Wales, 1600–2012
Today, cohabiting relationships account for most births outside marriage. But what was the situation in earlier centuries? Bringing together leading historians, demographers and lawyers, this interdis
How to Create the Perfect Wife: Georgian Britain's most ineligible bachelor and his quest to cultivate the ideal womanWendy Moore
"How to Create the Perfect Wife: Georgian Britain's most ineligible bachelor and his quest to cultivate the ideal womanWENDY MOORE." Women's History Review, 23(3), pp. 502–503
Cohabitation and marriage in England and Wales
Over the last 50 years, marriage in England and Wales has shifted from near-universality to being merely one option. A ‘marriage divide’ has emerged, with the likelihood of marriage being affected by education and income. While few of those marrying cite economic or legal factors as a motivation, the perceived need to attain a certain level of financial security may delay marriage for others, and minor financial incentives such as transferable ta…
Informal Muslim Marriages: Regulations and Contestations
This special issue of the OJLR focuses on informal religious-only marriages occurring within Muslim communities in various jurisdictions with differing traditions of marriage and state regulation. It is widely accepted that religious marriages are entered by Muslims seeking to embark on a religiously lawful intimate relationship.1 In general, a religious-only marriage usually2 results in the parties not benefitting from state legal protections av…
The Legal Treatment of Islamic Marriage Ceremonies
The extent and status of religious-only marriages in England and Wales has attracted considerable attention in recent years and generated a number of proposals for reform. Yet, any discussion of what the law should be needs to be grounded in a clear understanding of the existing framework, in order to assess what is currently problematic and what needs to change. This article accordingly analyses the scope for entering into a legally binding reli…
Contextualizing Muslim Religious-Only Marriages
This special issue focuses on Muslim religious-only marriages, which are marriages not recognized by state authorities but which at least one of the parties involved considers religiously valid. The practice of informal religious marriages has manifested in different parts of the world, and such marriages have become a topic of debate and intervention. In a tripartite dynamic, state authorities are involved in attempts to regulate or criminalize …
Sociology (42 works) · Law (36 works) · Political science (36 works) · History (20 works) · Law (20 works) · Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies (17 works) · Historical Economic and Social Studies (14 works) · Gender Studies (13 works) · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes (12 works) · History (12 works)