Middle Ages and early modern era 's painting of Highland wedding from 1780 In the late Middle Ages and
early modern era, girls could marry from the age of 12 (while for boys it was from 14) and, while many girls from the social elite married in their teens, most in the Lowlands married only after a period of life-cycle service, in their twenties. In some cases, marriage may have followed
handfasting, a period of betrothal, which in the Highlands may have effectively been a period of trial marriage, although recent scholarship suggests this idea is the result of late 20th-century
New Age mythology. Marriages, particularly higher in society, were often political in nature and the subject of complex negotiations over the tocher (
dowry). Some mothers took a leading role in negotiating marriages, as Lady Glenorchy did for her children in the 1560s and 1570s, or as
matchmakers, finding suitable and compatible partners for others. In the Middle Ages, marriage was a sacrament and the key element in validity was consent. The sacramental status was removed at the Reformation, but the centrality of consent remained. Weddings were often elaborate occasions for public celebration and feasting. Among the poor the tradition of the
penny wedding developed, by which guests contributed to the costs of occasion, with a meal after the ceremony, sometimes followed by music and dancing. In the early modern era there was a stress on a wife's duties to her husband and on the virtues of chastity and obedience. How exactly patriarchy worked in practice is difficult to discern. Scottish women in this period had something of a reputation among foreign observers for being forthright individuals, with
Pedro de Ayala, the Spanish ambassador to the court of
James IV, noting that they were "absolute mistresses of their houses and even their husbands". Before the Reformation, the extensive marriage bars for kinship meant that most noble marriages necessitated a
papal dispensation, which could later be used as grounds for annulment if the marriage proved politically or personally inconvenient, although there was no divorce as such.
Irregular and common-law marriages ", one at which the guests contributed money to pay for the cost of the ceremony and to benefit the couple Under early modern
Scots law, there were three forms of "irregular marriage" which can be summarised as the agreement of the couple to be married and some form of witnessing or evidence of such. An irregular marriage could result from mutual agreement, by a public promise followed by consummation, or by cohabitation with habit and repute. All but the last of these were abolished by the '''''' (
2 & 3 Geo. 6. c. 34), from 1 July 1940. Prior to this act, any citizen was able to witness a public promise. The tradition of
eloping English couples searching for
blacksmiths resulted legally from the fact that blacksmiths were necessarily local property-owning citizens, and could often be recognisable to strangers by their presence at their
forge. Culturally,
blacksmiths were long considered to have supernatural powers, which may also have influenced the tradition. '' by
David Wilkie, 1818 A marriage by "cohabitation with habit and repute", as it was known in Scots law, could still be formed; popularly described as "
by habit and repute", with repute being the crucial element to be proved. In 2006, Scotland was the last European jurisdiction to abolish this old-style common-law marriage, by the passing of the
Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006.
Border marriages , on the Scottish side; the river forms the border with England at this point In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, marriage laws in Scotland encouraged the practice of couples wishing to marry eloping from England to Scotland. With transport less developed, many of these marriages were at
Gretna Green, the first Scottish settlement on the main West Coast route from England; hence the term
Gretna Green marriage for marriages transacted in a jurisdiction that was not the residence of the parties being married, to avoid restrictions or procedures imposed by the parties' home jurisdictions. Other Scottish Border villages used for these marriages were
Coldstream Bridge, Lamberton Toll (in
Lamberton, Berwickshire),
Mordington and Paxton Toll.
Portpatrick in Wigtownshire was used by couples from Ireland, because of the daily packet boat service to
Donaghadee. Gretna's famous runaway marriages began in 1753 with the passing of the
Clandestine Marriages Act 1753 (
26 Geo. 2. c. 33) in
England. The act required consent to the marriage from the parents if a party to a marriage was not at least 21 years old. However, in
Scotland it was possible for boys to get married at 14 years and girls at 12 years without parental consent. Some
Gretna marriages were of (sometimes abducted) heiresses; e.g., the second marriage in 1826 of
Edward Gibbon Wakefield to the young heiress Ellen Turner, the
Shrigley abduction. Other motives for
Gretna marriages were to avoid publicity or to marry immediately. In 1856, Scottish law was changed to require 21 days' residence for marriage, and since 1929 both parties have had to be at least 16 years old (though there is still no parental consent needed). A further law change was made in 1940 to abolish these irregular
marriages by declaration. The residential requirement was lifted in 1977. Gretna Green remains a favoured location for marriage because of its romantic associations, with Dumfries and Galloway (the council area containing Gretna Green) the most popular area to get married in Scotland in 2015 (4,395 marriages in Dumfries and Galloway, out of a total of 29,691 marriages throughout Scotland). ==Eligibility==