Gretna Green

MARRIAGE. A marriage celebrated at Gretna, in Dumfries (bordering on the county of Cumberland), in Scotland. By the law of Scotland, a valid marriage may be contracted by consent alone, without any other formality. When the marriage act (26 Geo. II. c. 33) rendered the publication of banns, or a license, necessary in England, it became usual for persons who wished to marry clandestinely to go to Gretna Green, the nearest part of Scotland, and marry according to the Scotch law; so a sort of chapel was built at Gretna Green, in which the English marriage service was perfoirmed by the village blacksmith. 19 & 20 Vict. c. 96, § 1, now requires twenty-one days previous residence in Scotland, unless one of the parties has a usual place of residence therein. Wharton.

A farmsteading near the village of Springfield, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, eight miles northwest of Carlisle, Cent. Dict. The name was afterward applied to the village which became notorious for the celebration of irregular marriages. By the law of Scotland nothing was required to constitute a marriage but the mutual declaration of the parties in the presence of witnesses, even though the parties were minors. These conditions afforded an easy method of evading the Marriage Act, 26 Geo. II. c. 33, which required the publication of banns or a license. By act 19 & 20 Vict. c. 96, § 1, no irregular marriage in Scotland is now valid unless one of the parties had at the date thereof his or her usual place of residence there, or had lived in Scotland for twenty-one days next preceding such marriage.

A "Gretna-Green marriage" was a marriage solemnized in Scotland by parties who went there to avoid the delay and formalities required in England. Gretna-Green, being the nearest place across the boundary line, was the more generally resorted to. Statute of 19 and 20 Vict. (1856), c. 96, requires that at least one of the parties shall have his or her usual place of residence in Scotland, or shall have lived there twenty-one days preceding the marriage.* In the United States, the term describes marriages celebrated between residents of a State who go to a place beyond and yet near to the boundary line of an adjoining State, on account of some advantage afforded by the law of that State.