Kentucky Marriage Bond - Purpose?
DBMARE
My great-grandparents were married in the 1887 in Lee County, Kentucky. I
have found that before a Marriage Certificate was issued, there was a
Marriage Bond. The bond indicates that the groom and another member are
bound to the state of Kentucky for the sum of $100. Can anyone explain the
purpose and use of the Kentucky Marriage Bonds? Was there a fee paid for
these Marriage Bonds? Did they actually give $100 to the state? When did
this practice stop?
Thank you,
Debbie Birch
DBM...@aol.com
Richard Pence
dbm...@aol.com (DBMARE) wrote:
Marriage bonds were commonly required in most jurisdictions of the
U.S. after early colonial days up until the late 1800s. The purpose of
the bond was to make certain that the impending marriage was legal.
Primarily, this meant that both the prospective bride and groom were
of legal age and neither was presently married to someone else. The
laws varied from state to state, but those were the the most common;
in some jurisdictions it was also illegal to marry a close relative -
these, too, You often will see wording in the bonds that says "the
condition of this bond is such that if there be no lawful reason why
this marriage cannot take place" then the bond is void. The only time
it would be paid is if there, indeed, was a legal reason. Typically
the groom and a bondsmen - often the bride's father or a brother -
signed the bond (or sometimes another close relative or neighbor of
either); presumably, those who signed the bond were sufficiently
acquainted with one or both of parties to know that the upcoming
marriage would be legal. If either party was under age (usually 21 for
both, but sometimes only 18 for the women), you should expect to find
a consent signed by a parent of the under-age party.
The bond was not, as some suppose, "a promise to marry," to be
forfeited by the groom if he got cold feet!
The bond superceded the "marriage bans" of an earlier day. Bans were
typically announced in church so many times or posted publicly in the
town square. At the time this was sufficient, as the couple were known
to all and if anyone knew of a legal reason why the marriage could not
take place he or she would come forward. In the growing frontier
communities, this was not sufficient so laws were passed requiring the
marriage bond.
Hope this helps.
Richard Pence
dbm...@aol.com (DBMARE) wrote:?
>Was there a fee paid for
>these Marriage Bonds? Did they actually give $100 to the state? When did
>this practice stop?
Forgot to respond to these two parts of your query in my last message.
If there was a fee, it was generally a small clerk's fee for the
paperwork.
I would suspect that in most states the marriage bond was replaced by
a process similar to present-day marriage licenses by the date you
mentioned in your message (1887) and at least (again, in most states)
by the early 1900s.
