In the second session of the first Parliament, 1793, was passed “An Act to confirm and make valid certain marriages heretofore contracted in the country now comprised within the Province of Canada, and to provide for the future solemnization of marriage within the same.”
“Whereas many marriages have been contracted in this Province at a time when it was impossible to observe the forms prescribed by law for the solemnization thereof, by reason that there was no Protestant parson or minister duly ordained, residing in any part of the said Province, nor any consecrated Protestant church or chapel within the same, and whereas the parties having contracted such marriages, and their issue may therefore be subjected to various disabilities, in order to quiet the minds of such persons and to provide for the future solemnization of marriage within this Province, be it enacted and declared by the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council and Assembly of the Province of Upper Canada, that the marriage and marriages of all persons, not being under any canonical disqualification to contract matrimony, that have been publicly contracted before any magistrate or commanding officer of a post, or adjutant, or surgeon of a regiment, acting as chaplain, or any other person in any public office or employment, before the passing of this Act, shall be confirmed and considered to all intents and purposes as good and valid in law, and that the parties who have contracted such marriages, and the issue thereof, may become severally entitled to all the rights and benefits, and subject to all the obligations arising from marriage and consanguinity, in as full and ample a manner as if the said marriages had respectively been solemnized according to law.
“And be it further enacted, that in order to enable those persons who may be desirous of preserving the testimony of such marriage, and of the birth of their children, it shall and may be lawful, at any time, within three years from the passing of this Act, for any magistrate of the district where any such parties as may have contracted matrimony as aforesaid, shall reside, at the request of either of said parties, to administer to each an oath that they were married on a certain day, and that there is now living issue of the marriage.” This attestation to be subscribed to by the parties and certified by the magistrate. The Clerk of the Peace recorded these certificates in a register for the purpose, which thereafter was considered sufficient evidence of such matters.
It was further enacted, “That until there shall be five parsons or ministers of the Church of England, doing duty in their respective parishes in any one district,” persons “desirous of intermarrying with each other, and neither of them living within the distance of eighteen miles of any minister of the Church of England, may apply to any neighbouring Justice of the Peace,” who should affix in some public place, a notice, for which he should receive one shilling, and no more. The purport of the notice was that A. B. and C. D. were desirous of getting married, and there being no parson within eighteen miles, if any person knew any just reason why they should not be married, should give notice thereof to such magistrate. After which a form of the Church of England was to be followed, but should a minister reside within eighteen miles of either parties the marriage was null and void.
It is related that these notices of marriage were often attached to trees by the road side, and as it was considered desirable in those days to keep intending marriages secret, not unfrequently the intending parties would watch and remove the notice which had been put up.
In the year 1798, an Act was passed to extend the provisions of the first Act, which provided that “it shall be lawful for the minister of any congregation or religious community of persons, professing to be members of the Church of Scotland, or Lutherans, or Calvinists” to marry according to the rights of such church, and it was necessary that one of the persons to be married should have been a member of the particular church six months before the marriage. The clergyman must have been regularly ordained, and was to appear before six magistrates at quarter sessions, with at least seven members of his congregation, to prove his office, or take the oath of allegiance. And then, if the dignitaries thought it expedient, they might grant him a certificate that he was a settled minister, and therefore could marry, having published the intended marriage upon three Sundays previous.
In November, 1818, a brief act was passed to make valid the marriages of those who may have neglected to preserve the testimony of their marriage.
In the year 1821, an act was passed “for the more certain punishment of persons illegally solemnizing marriage, by which it was provided, that if persons, legally qualified to marry, should do so without the publication of banns, unless license be first had, should be guilty of a misdemeanor.”
There was no further legislation until 1831, when provision was again made to confirm marriages contracted “before any justice of the peace, magistrate, or commanding officer of a post, or minister and clergyman, in a manner similar to the previous acts.” It was at this time enacted that it should be lawful for ministers of the church of Scotland, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, Independants, Methodists, Menonists, Tunkers, or Moravians, to solemnize matrimony, after having obtained certificates from the quarter sessions. According to the act of 1798, only the church of Scotland, Lutherans, and Calvinists, beside the English church, were permitted to marry persons. So it will be seen by this act of 1831, important concessions were made to different denominations. This act was by the Methodists, especially regarded as a deserved recognition of the constantly increasing number of that denomination. It certainly, at this time, seems remarkably strange, that so obvious a right, was for so long a time withheld, not alone from them, but other denominations. But the effort was strong, and long continued to build up the church of England to the exclusion of all others.