FORBIDDING THE BANNS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19865, 13 June 1927, Page 10

FORBIDDING THE BANNS

DODGING THE OBJECTIONS REASONS FOE OPPOSITION. “IT'S ’IS FACE.” I have just rend an account of how a f\ther, at Cc -for ’ Church. Gloucestershire. r- h •<! into the building just as his d.T Jghtecr, aged nineteen, war. about to be- married, and forbade the cere-' mony (writes a clerical contributor to an Engish paper). AH ended welt however. The naughtiest bride. I know was a girl who got over the difficulty of her j banns being forbidden by sending her; mother away for a month’s holiday and ; getting married in the interval! I have had experience of seventeen “forbiddings, ” but only four succeeded. Three would-be brides who were not twenty-one, and one groom of eighteen —the lady of his choice was forty-six—found themselves parentally barred. What Does “Now” Mean? Of the balance of thirteen, two were very peculiar and made a tremendous stir in legal circles —ecclesiastical and “lay.” The first case concerned a bridegroom whose twenty-first birthday fell on the day after that fixed for his wedding. As he stood on the chancel steps with his bride, his father made formal objection on the ground of age. Without comment, the young man handed me a cutting from the legal column of a wellknown paper. There it was stated that legally a man became of age on the day previous to his twenty-first birthday, and deeming that good enough I

wont ahead. I was threatened with all sorts of pains and penalties, but nothing happened. The second case concerned the time limit of a “forbidding.” In addition to the three opportunities given when the banns are called, there is the final one in the first part of the service: “If any man can show any just cause , . . let him now speak or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.” I was just about to pronounce the couple man and wife, when a hot and angry parent tore into the church and bade me stop. Ruling that it was too late, I completed the service. And for months the lawyers wrangled about’what “now” meant. Finally, I was “admonished,” and took it smiling. Complications. “He can’t marry her because” —this from a bride’s mother-—“his father was my sister’s uncle on account of her marrying his nephew when her first husband died.” I ruled that the relationship was no bar, but what it really was I’ve never been able to work out. Great fun was made of the following in the press. It is worth repeating. A prospective bride’s mother stood up in the church and said there was an “impediment.” And before I could ask her to come to the vestry afterwards, she blurted out, “Why, ho can’t say two words without stuttering!” True, as it happened, but not legal impediment. Another mother, not enamoured of her prospective sin-in-law, gave me the shortest objection I’ve ever received. “It’s ’is face,” she said. “But,” I smiled, “isn’t that a matter for your daughter?” Her reply: “It might be if she’d seen it, but she’s that shortsighted that she ain’t! ’ ’