banns of marriage

banns of marriage, public legal notice made in a church proclaiming an intention of impending marriage with the object that persons aware of any impediment to the marriage may make their objection known.

Tertullian addressed Christian marriage in the earliest days of the church in his treatises Ad uxorem (“To My Wife”) and De pudicitia (“On Modesty”). In France, it is believed that the practice of proclaiming banns dates to the 9th century. The first canonical enactment on the subject in the English church is contained in the 11th canon of the Synod of Westminster in London (1200), which orders that "no marriage shall be contracted without banns thrice published in the church, unless by special authority of the bishop." The Lateran Council of 1215 made the publication of banns compulsory.

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In early Christianity it was usual for the priest to betroth the pair formally in the name of the Blessed Trinity. In England, under the canon law and by statute, banns are the normal preliminary to marriage. However, a marriage may be solemnized without the publication of banns by authority of a special licence granted by the archbishop of Canterbury, or of a common licence granted by a competent ecclesiastical authority, or by a superintendent registrar’s certificate. The legal status of banns within the Church of England is governed by the Marriage Act of 1949 as modified by the Church of England Marriage (Amendment) Measure 2012. Banns remain valid for three months after their complete publication on three Sundays prior to the marriage during morning or evening service. If any persons knowingly intermarry after the expiration of the banns, or in any place other than a place where banns may be published, or without the due publication of banns, or after joint and intended concealment of the true name of one or of both of the parties, the marriage is void.

In the United States there is no statutory requirement, as the role of the marriage banns is filled by the civil marriage license. While the proclamation of banns was widespread in the colonial period, by the 20th century the practice was largely confined to adherents of Roman Catholicism. The 1983 Code of Canon Law stated that local bishops were to “establish norms about the examination of spouses,” and in the 21st century, while banns were no longer sanctioned in an official capacity, some parishes continued to proclaim them as a matter of tradition.