[BITList] partnership

[HUGH]

Colin,

I think the matter may have been overlooked when the act was being drafted.  In Scotland, as you probably know, marriage by habit and repute is perfectly legal, as the following extract from a statement of the law says :

"If a man and a woman who are free to marry each other cohabit as husband and wife in Scotland for a considerable time and are generally regarded as being husband and wife they are presumed to have consented to be married, even if only tacitly, and, if the presumption is not rebutted, will be held to be married by cohabitation with habit and repute."

When our nephew got married in Newark Castle here in Port Glasgow, the minister gave a short talk before the ceremony.  His predecessors in the late 1600s to early 1700s, he said, would have come down from Kilmacolm once a year and dispensed Communion, baptised children and entered them in the register, and performed a blessing on such marriages as had been entered into since the last visit.  The visits ceased when a church was built in Port Glasgow c1718, but there is no reason to suppose the marriage situation changed.

Hugh.
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