Titel: Can you read this?
Skrivet av: Ingela Martenius skrivet 2011-06-10, 00:58
Betrothal and banns were never the same thing, or had the same legal consequences.
Until 1734 the only legal way to marry was to have a betrothal. The church ceremony was just a blessing. Compare it with how it's done today in e.g. Germany, France, The Netherlands: a civil ceremony followed by a religious ceremony where the civil ceremony is the legally binding one and the church ceremony is just for pomp and circumstance. In the Church Law of 1686 people were adviced to have a church wedding ceremony, but it had no legal significance.
In 1734 the church ceremony was made legally binding, and was originally intended to be the only legal way to contract a marriage. However, the farmer estate made such a tremendous fuss that we had to have a Swedish compromise (i.e. have your cake and eat it): if a proper betrothal had been entered upon, its legal consquences were equal to a church ceremony. This meant most importantly that any child born to a properly betrothed couple was legitimate. Since a betrothal had such legal consequences it couldn't just be broken off by the parties without no further ado, a betrothal had to be properly ended in a court and the bishop would issue the decree. The final vestiges of this odd situation didn't disappear until about 1971 (yes, 40 years ago); until then a child born out of wedlock but within a betrothal was legitimate and stood in a better position when it came to inheriting its father.
Originally there was a vast difference between a betrothal [trolovning] and an engagement [förlovning]. The betrothal was public, with witnesses (sometimes even a written contract), and effectively constituted marriage (also after 1734, as shown above). An engagement was private, and involved only the man and the woman. The only legal consequence of an engagement was that it could be the basis of a breach of promise - i.e. if an engagement was broken off one of the parties could have the right to monetary compensation for preparations for the promised marriage, like a wedding dress or decorating a house. In time - certainly by the latter part of the 1800's - the difference between betrothal and engagement disappeared, first in people's minds and later also in the law.
Banns were just the announcing (in the bride's parish) of the intended wedding, so that any objections could be voiced. Banns were read on three consecutive Sundays, from the pulpit, and were valid from the third Sunday (there were couples who married on the third Sunday though they were meant to wait a week) and for four months (if the couple hadn't married within four months, the banns had to be read again). The Swedish church ceremony has never contained that exciting bit about if anyone has any objections let them be heard now or be forever silent. That was taken care of by the banns.
It was very important to be able to show that you were indeed free to marry, otherwise the reading of the banns would - as in this case - be broken off. If it was obvious from the start that there would be problems, the vicar wouldn't even start reading them. One such obstacle was if you had emigrated and then returned; my grandmother emigrated in 1897 and returned in 1901. Thus she could show no papers (valid in Sweden) for 1897-1901 when she wanted to marry in 1905. The solution was that an announcement had to be made in the official Swedish newspaper [Post & Inrikes]; only a certain time after the announcements would the vicar allow the banns to be read.
The church has never had any problems with the banns [lysning]; what they had a problem with was the betrothal since that was a civil contract not involving the church. The banns wasn't a problem since the church naturally wasn't interested in marriages that had to be annulled due to things like e.g. bigamy, lacking the marriage guardian's [giftomannens] consent (necessary for all women - except widows - until 1872 and for noble women until 1882), being too closely related etc. However, since Ansgar set foot in Birka in the 9th century the church fought to have the church wedding made the only legally binding way to marry. 900 years later the 1734 law very nearly met this goal but little more than a century later it was necessary to introduce civil weddings (due to the parties having different religions); civil weddings became available to everyone, no reasons needed, in 1908.
Ingela PS. You can read more about betrothals, banns, weddings here: http://web.comhem.se/~u31263678/genealogy/Wedding.pdf