The Marriage Act 1949 (1949 c. 76) is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom regulating marriages in England and Wales, the first to be enacted under the Consolidation of Enactments (Procedure) Act 1949.[1] It was intended to consolidate and rationalise much of the preceding legislation surrounding marriage and the forbidden degrees of relationship for a marriage to be legally recognised.
Although the Deceased Wife’s Sister Marriage Act of 1907Act of Parliament making it legal for the first time in the United Kingdom for a man to marry his dead wife's sister. had legalised marriage between a widower and his deceased wife’s sister, the same was not true for the sister of a divorced wife, one of the anomalies addressed by this 1949 Act.
As well as laying out the rules for forbidden degrees of relationship, the Act also specified that all marriages must take place between 8 am and 6 pm, and that a marriage between persons either of whom was under the age of sixteen was void.[2]
Prohibited degrees of relationship
The Act lays out the prohibited degrees of relationship between individuals for a legal marriage for both men and women.[2] Those relationships may be by blood or by marriage: consanguinity or affinity.[3] The prohibited degrees specified by the 1949 Act apply only to the validity of a marriage between two related individuals, not to the legality of their sexual relationship.[4]
| Prohibited Kindreds and Affinities | |
| Men | Women |
| Mother | Father |
| Daughter | Son |
| Father’s mother | Father’s father |
| Mother’s mother | Mother’s father |
| Son’s daughter | Son’s son |
| Daughter’s daughter | Daughter’s son |
| Sister | Brother |
| Wife’s mother | Husband’s father |
| Wife’s daughter | Husband’s son |
| Father’s wife | Mother’s husband |
| Son’s wife | Daughter’s husband |
| Father’s father’s wife | Father’s mother’s husband |
| Mother’s father’s wife | Mother’s mother’s husband |
| Wife’s father’s mother | Husband’s father’s father |
| Wife’s mother’s mother | Husband’s mother’s father |
| Wife’s son’s daughter | Husband’s son’s son |
| Wife’s daughter’s daughter | Husband’s daughter’s son |
| Son’s son’s wife | Son’s daughter’s husband |
| Daughter’s son’s wife | Daughter’s daughter’s husband |
| Father’s sister | Father’s brother |
| Mother’s sister | Mother’s brother |
| Brother’s daughter | Brother’s son |
| Sister’s daughter | Sister’s son |