Re: hand fasting and banns

["Buck, Richard" <BuckR@costman.com>]

One should be especially careful of handfastings on Sunday in Pennsylvania.
It might be UL but if both parties have the traditional 4 witnesses it could 

be legal.  I hate to say it, but you really should check with a lawyer 
before
you do something that could get you into common law troubles.

It might be the cheapest $35-$350 dollars you'll ever spend.


Richard of La Rochelle
Passionate enjoyer of "shaedenfruede" due to many boneheaded mistakes of
his own.
 ----------
From: owner-atlantia-l
To: atlantia-l; Matthew Allen Newsome
Subject: Re: hand fasting and banns
Date: Thursday, February 01, 1996 9:26AM

     The SCA is a wonderful game that we play on weekends.  It has no rules
     concerning marriages.

     If you want to have a medieval-ish wedding within the SCA, you can
     follow whatever medieval-ish marriage practices you want.  Unless
     there is someone presiding at the marriage who has legal authority in
     the real world to marry you (unless you are "married" in Pennsylvania
     or another jurisdiction that allows for clergy-less and/or jp-less
     marriages), do not expect that the law will recognize you as married,
     with or without banns.  Handfasting is precisely as valid a form for
     an SCA relationship sanction as any other.

     Melisande de Belvoir


______________________________ Reply Separator
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Subject: hand fasting and banns
Author:  Matthew Allen Newsome <mnewsome@warren-wilson.edu> at INTERNET
Date:    2/1/96 1:21 AM


A question on SCA marriages.  It is a custom to announce banns of
marriage three times before getting married.  This is correct.  But, what
I am interested in knowing is, is this a neccesity?  What I am thinking
of is the Medieval Scottish custom of hand fasting (practiced in Scotland
from the ninth century to the Reformation).  This consisted of living
together for a period of one year, at the end of which, if you still
could stand each other, you were considered legally wed.  If you desired
ceremony, you could have the next visiting priest say a few words, but
this was not neccesary until around 1550.  All children born during that
year (hopefully only one!) were legitimate, and for that year, regardless
of the outcome, you were considered more or less married.  But this
custom did not include banns.  Banns were not a legal neccesity in
Scotland until the Reformation.  So for a SCA wedding a la Scotland,
banns would be completely out of period.  I guess what this boils down to
is, if you are having an SCA marriage, are banns a neccesity or will any
period form of wedding do?
Aye,
Eogan