State Marriage License

[rockfox]

According to this article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banns_of_marriage The marriage license replaced this Banns of Marriage in the United States. This Banns, means "Proclamation", and was intended to prevent unlawful marriage, which included polygamy and marriage to close kin. Naturally, it could have been used to prevent interracial marriage as well, although the article never mentions this.

Ya that article is historically inaccurate. The banns was practiced in the colonies, esp. in the New England congregationalist settlements. Marriage licenses came later for the purposes of preventing miscegenation.

he believes that marriage is under the realm of " family government"

That puts him like 90% of the way there. But I'm not holding my breath he'd approve of poly.

 

[Daniel DeLuca]

Ya that article is historically inaccurate. The banns was practiced in the colonies, esp. in the New England congregationalist settlements. Marriage licenses came later for the purposes of preventing miscegenation.

I would definitely be intrigued to see source material that supports that.

 

[SerenaJoy82]

I would definitely be intrigued to see source material that supports that.

https://www.marriage.com/advice/license/unlocking-the-past-marriage-license-history/

 

[rockfox]

https://www.marriage.com/advice/license/unlocking-the-past-marriage-license-history/

Thanks Serena. What that article glosses over, which is fine its a quick summary, is that the reach of the COE pushed licenses in the colonies was limited by the religious diversity of the colonies. Quite a few colonies were dominated by congregationalist groups.

Think about it, if you live in a small colony chopped out of the wilderness where everyone knows everyone, goes to the same church, keeps their livestock on the same commons, and there are no bureaucrats, no one cares if you have your paperwork filed. It's only centralized authorities that care about paperwork. But the people do want to know ahead of time who proposes to marry so they can object if necessary. The community had a stake in these things.

 

[SerenaJoy82]

Thanks Serena. What that article glosses over, which is fine its a quick summary, is that the reach of the COE pushed licenses in the colonies was limited by the religious diversity of the colonies. Quite a few colonies were dominated by congregationalist groups.

Think about it, if you live in a small colony chopped out of the wilderness where everyone knows everyone, goes to the same church, keeps their livestock on the same commons, and there are no bureaucrats, no one cares if you have your paperwork filed. It's only centralized authorities that care about paperwork. But the people do want to know ahead of time who proposes to marry so they can object if necessary. The community had a stake in these things.

That is true, but banns or marriage licences are not biblically required to my knowledge. These are simply cultural norms. It may be against cultural norms for people of different races to marry, but there is nothing unscriptural about it. Thus, while the community could object if banns were published, it does not mean that such a couple would biblically be prohibited from marrying.

 

[rockfox]

That is true, but banns or marriage licences are not biblically required to my knowledge. These are simply cultural norms.

True. Though one could argue banns are basically the same sort of things as we see Boaz doing in order to marry Ruth. IIRC what he did wasn't strictly required, but it was the way they carried out the specific letter of the law.