Introduction

Religious-only marriages in England and Wales have attracted much attention in recent years. The focus of many campaigners,¹ almost all of the policy debates,² and much of the academic discussion³ has been on the incidence of such marriages within Muslim communities.

Yet the current legal framework already applies to Islamic marriage ceremonies in exactly the same way as it applies to all Christian de­nominations other than Anglicans and Quakers, and the differences between this framework and that applicable to Jewish marriages are not as great as is often assumed.⁶ And history tells us that religious- only marriages have also occurred within Christian and Jewish com­munities. This chapter highlights a number of examples that have particular resonance for current debates. The first section focuses on the period immediately before and after the passage of the Marriage Act 1836 that forms the basis of the current law.⁷ It highlights the debates surrounding Catholic religious-only marriages in the 1820s and 1830s, and how such religious-only marriages continued to take place even once Catholics were able to marry in a way that was legally recognized. The second section examines the emergence of Jewish religious-only marriages in the later part of the nineteenth century. Much has been made of the special status of Jewish marriages, but, as this section shows, Jewish marriages nevertheless took place outside that legal framework.

By taking the long view, and looking at these earlier examples of religious-only marriages, we can see that exactly the same chal­lenges have occurred before and that there is nothing intrinsically or uniquely challenging about Muslim marriage practices. The third and final section considers why Muslim marriages were not put on the same footing as Jewish (and Quaker) marriages. It also provides an insight into the first mosque weddings in England, towards the end of the nineteenth century, showing how those marrying there navigated the requirements of the law.