The banns of marriage, commonly known simply as the "banns" or "bans", are the public announcement in a Christian parish church, or in the town council, of an impending marriage between two specified persons. It is commonly associated with the Catholic Church, the Church of Sweden (Lutheran), the Church of England (Anglican), and with other Christian denominations whose traditions are similar. In 1983, the Catholic Church removed the requirement for banns and left it to individual national bishops' conferences to decide whether to continue the practice, but in most Catholic countries the banns are still published.
Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in others that is a separate step. Under a modern constitutional monarchy, royal assent is considered little more than a formality. Even in nations such as the United Kingdom, Norway, the Netherlands, Liechtenstein and Monaco which still, in theory, permit their monarch to withhold assent to laws, the monarch almost never does so, except in a dire political emergency or on advice of government. While the power to veto by withholding royal assent was once exercised often by European monarchs, such an occurrence has been very rare since the eighteenth century.
The Church in Wales is an Anglican church in Wales, composed of six dioceses.
The Ecclesiastical Appeals Act 1532, also called the Statute in Restraint of Appeals, the Act of Appeals and the Act of Restraints in Appeals, was an Act of the Parliament of England.
Civil partnership in the United Kingdom is a form of civil union between couples open to both same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples. It was introduced via the Civil Partnership Act 2004 by the Labour government. The Act initially permitted only same-sex couples to form civil partnerships, but the law was expanded to include opposite-sex couples in 2019.
Same-sex marriage is legal in all parts of the United Kingdom. As marriage is a devolved legislative matter, different parts of the United Kingdom legalised at different times; it has been recognised and performed in England and Wales since March 2014, in Scotland since December 2014, and in Northern Ireland since January 2020. Civil partnerships, which offer most, but not all, of the rights and benefits of marriage, have been recognised since 2005.
The Welsh Church Act 1914 is an Act of Parliament under which the Church of England was separated and disestablished in Wales and Monmouthshire, leading to the creation of the Church in Wales. The Act had long been demanded by the Nonconformist community in Wales, which composed the majority of the population and which resented paying taxes to the Church of England. It was sponsored by the Liberal Party and opposed by the Conservative Party.
The General Synod is the tricameral deliberative and legislative organ of the Church of England. The synod was instituted in 1970, replacing the Church Assembly, and is the culmination of a process of rediscovering self-government for the Church of England that had started in the 1850s.
Marriage is available in England and Wales to both opposite-sex and same-sex couples and is legally recognised in the forms of both civil and religious marriage. Marriage laws have historically evolved separately from marriage laws in other jurisdictions in the United Kingdom. There is a distinction between religious marriages, conducted by an authorised religious celebrant, and civil marriages, conducted by a state registrar. The legal minimum age to enter into a marriage in England and Wales is 18 since 27 February 2023. Previously the minimum age of marriage was 16, with parental permission. This also applies to civil partnerships.
The Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that enables the Church of England to submit primary legislation called Measures, for passage by Parliament. Measures have the same force and effect as Acts of Parliament. The power to pass measures was originally granted to the Church Assembly, which was replaced by the General Synod of the Church of England in 1970 by the Synodical Government Measure 1969.
The Marriage Act 1836, or the Act for Marriages in England 1836, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that legalised civil marriage in what is now England and Wales from 30 June 1837.
The Suspensory Act 1914 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which suspended the coming into force of two other Acts: the Welsh Church Act 1914, and the Government of Ireland Act 1914. The Suspensory Act received the royal assent on the same day as the two Acts it suspended, on 18 September 1914.
Marriage in New Zealand is governed by an Act of Parliament. The minimum marriage age is 18 years, or 16 years with consent of the Family Court. Polygamous marriages are not permitted in New Zealand. There are prohibitions of marriages between some relatives and some who are already in a civil union.
The Marriage Act 2013 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which introduced same-sex marriage in England and Wales.
A civil, or registrar, ceremony is a non-religious legal marriage ceremony performed by a government official or functionary. In the United Kingdom, this person is typically called a registrar. In the United States, civil ceremonies may be performed by town, city, or county clerks, judges or justices of the peace, or others possessing the legal authority to support the marriage as the wedding officiant.
The Welsh Church (Temporalities) Act 1919 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was made to provide for a grant to be made from the Treasury to enable the Welsh Church Commissioners to carry out their task and to set a date for the implementation of the disestablishment of the Church in Wales from the Church of England mandated by the Welsh Church Act 1914. Operation of this Act had been delayed by the Suspensory Act 1914, initially until 18 September 1915, and subsequently by a series of Orders in Council made under the Suspensory Act. The 1919 Act therefore provided for a final postponement until the Welsh Church Act 1914 would come into operation.
The Welsh Church Act 1945 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The act relates to burial grounds in Wales that were intended to be transferred from the Church of England to Welsh local authorities following the separation of the Church in Wales from the Church of England, its independence, and its simultaneous disestablishment.
The Church of England border polls 1915–1916 were a series of referendums held in January and February 1915, for residents of living in nineteen Church of England ecclesiastical parishes, the boundaries of which crossed the England–Wales border. They were carried out to determine if the parish residents wished their parish to remain part of the Church of England or to become part of the Church in Wales when the Welsh Church Act 1914 took effect.. The polls eventually resulted in all but one of the border parishes voting to remain with the Church of England.
The Church of England Marriage Measure 2008, No. 1 is a Church of England Measure passed by the General Synod of the Church of England extending the right to marry in a Church of England church to parish churches with which a person has a qualifying connection.
The Welsh Church Commissioners were set up by the Welsh Church Act 1914 to deal with the disendowment of the Church of England in Wales, as part of its disestablishment. Their task was to ascertain which ecclesiastical assets the future Church in Wales should retain, and which should be transferred to local authorities, and to various Welsh national institutions. They were required to transfer those assets which the Church in Wales was entitled to retain to the Representative Body of the Church in Wales. The remaining assets were to be transferred to the thirteen county councils and four county borough councils which existed in Wales until 1974, and to the University of Wales and its constituent colleges. For various reasons which are explained below, the process took considerably longer than was first envisaged. The commissioners could not ultimately be wound up until 1947. The assets transferred constituted the "Welsh Church Act Funds" of the respective institutions. The county and county borough councils hold the funds for charitable and other purposes. The funds are still in existence.
