Curtains fa the Marriage
By Madelin Blitzstein
THOUGH everyone knows that
eloping couples always seek out
a Gretna Green where the mari
tal knot can be tied with a mini
mum of red tape, not everyone knows
why these hasty marriage Meccas are
called Gretna Green.
The reason is that when, in 1754,
eloping English lads and lassies were
prevented from having the ceremony
performed, as it had been previously, in
the Fleet prison in London, they had to
look for hospitality elsewhere.
The cordial reception these runaway
pairs sought was offered to them just
across the border in the nearest village
on the Scottish side; there, at Gretna
Green or Graitney Green, as it was
often called, all they had to do to be
come man and wife was to declare their
wish to marry in the presence of wit
nesses.
The ceremony was usually performed
by the village blacksmith, but the toll
keeper, the ferryman, or any other
adult might officiate.
As many as 200 couples were mar
ried at the toll-house in a single year.
|m f ' $ H
This photo, taken in 1917, shows an
Hoping couple being met in Elkton,
Md., by a runner for the “mar
riage syndicate.”
In 1856, however, this romantic traffic
came to a sudden end when the law
suddenly was revised to require that
one of the contracting parties be a
resident of Scotland for at least three
weeks prior to the event.
And just as 1856 spelled doom for the
marriage business of Gretna Green, the
summer of 1937 has written a large and
ominous Finis over the lucrative elope
ment business which served to bring
/ countless dollars into the little town of
Elkton, Md.
While the Scottish Green counted its
eloping couples in the hundreds, the
energetic "marrying parsons” of Elkton.
allied as they were with the taxicab
syndicate and street “runners,” all
equipped for fast service, figured their
trade in the thousands.
Last year, as a matter of fact, this
town of 3331 population bore witness to
11,512 marriages; it was estimated that
the town made between SIOO,OOO and
$150,000 a year out of these eloping
couples. And the state, in its turn, took
in a revenue of two bucks a couple,
making $23,024 in all in 1936.
T>UT today all that glory is a thing of
the past The hasty wedding in
dustry has been ruined by the passage
of Maryland’s “gin marriage act" which
Senator W. F. Davis of Denton intro
duced last February, and which went
into effect on June 1.
Thus the marriage reformers who
aought for years to do away with the
evils of “bargain matches” and “mar-
rying parsons” in Elkton have won their
fight. Thus the syndicate which con
ducted the marrying parlors at East
Main street and Delaware avenue has
applied to the Elkton Town Council for
a permit to build a gas station. And
thus the Revs. Charles M. Cope, Edward
Minor and Joseph T. Baker, who did
most of the actual marrying, find that
they are now in the ranks of the un
employed.
The funny thing is that not so long
ago these marrying parsons were hav
ing a good laugh at the expense of Jus
tices of the Peace in Pennsylvania's
own Gretna Green, Media, in Delaware
County, close to Philadelphia. But now
it becomes the turn of Fred Cooper,
Alan C. W. Mathues, Amos A. Keiser
and William Morgan to return the hi
larity in good measure.
You see, the Keystone State, before
Oct. 1, 1935, had no law about delayed
marriages. All you had to do was to
go to the City Hall, get a license and
then take it to a magistrate, a judge or
a minister, as you desired.
PIC
U’OR 12 years, reformers had been try
ing to put legislation through for de
layed marriages; the lobbyists for the
Justices of the Peace and marrying par
sons managed to defeat the bills.
Finally Anna Brancato, the only
woman in the Pennsylvania Legislature,
and a bachelor girl herself, sponsored
the bill which became a law on Oct. 1,
1935; it requires three days’ notice be
fore the issuance of a license to wed.
Thus almost two years ago Media was
ruined as a marriage mart.
The marrying parsons of Elkton, sev
eral of whom were employed by the
taxi syndicate, started on a large adver
tising campaign. The Rev. Edward
Minor, who, after nine years as a mar
rying parson had been defrocked by
the Baptist Church, helped to proclaim
the wares of the Rev. Joseph T. Baker,
who split the fees with him. And the
taxi company, for whom the Rev. C. M
Cope worked at a salary of S3OOO per
annum, refurbished the billboards m
bigger and bolder type.
But in Elkton itself there were ele
ments opposed to the marriage traffic.
The Town Council issued an edict for
bidding all advertising billboards and
signs. Men were sent around to take
down the signs and several tussles en-
Mills
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Pennsylvania State Representative
Anna Brancato, who sponsored the
bill which ruined Media as a mar
riage mart.
sued. The signs did come down in the
fall of 1935.
With their signs barred in Elkton, the
marrying parsons erected their outdoor
advertising paraphernalia in Delaware,
just across the state line, four miles
from Elkton. Business boomed. Penn
sylvanians flocked and Quaker City in
habitants found the distance of 49 mile?
to the first county seat over the Mary
land state line a pleasant motor trip
But all that is a story of past gran
deur and Elkton, like Media, is today a
city of sadness where the “marrying
genljemen” have had to return to what
ever prosaic jobs they could find.
Alan Mathues, one of the former
“marrying justices” of Media. Pa.,
who now has the laugh on the Elkton
parsons who last year were laughing
at him.
t’LKTON got its first chance in-1913,
when both New Jersey and Dela
ware tightened their marriage laws. As
a matter of fact, Maine was the* pioneer
for all delayed marriage legislation
when it passed a delayed marriage law
as early as 1858. A number of states
followed, but four of them—Colorado,
lowa, Wyoming and Tennessee—later
repealed their delayed marriage legis
lation.
In Delaware, where once marriage
was easy and Wilmington was the scene
of midnight weddings, licenses are
issued by Clerks of Peace and Justices
of the Peace in the various counties.
They must be obtained 24 hours before
the certificate if either party is a resi
dent of the state, but if both are non
residents, then 96 hours must elapse
between license and altar.
If Philadelphians want a hasty wed
ding, their best bet is Washington, D.
C., where, with the consent of parents
or guardians, boys can marry as young
as 16 and girls as early as 14. Notice or
residence is not required; licenses are
good immediately after issued.
From Philadelphia it is 142 miles to
the nation’s capital with stop-offs, if de
sired, at Pimlico, Laurel and Bowie for
the races these warm days.
This delayed marriage idea seems to
be catching on very quickly; Washing
ton may soon become the center for
hasty weddings just as it is for many
other quick changes. New York, where
one could always get a license and get
married with it the same day, resident
or not, recently adopted a law requiring
a 72-hour interval. West Virginia,
which had a little Gretna Green of its
own in Wellsburg, has just passed a
new law similar to Maryland’s
The future looks dark for marrying
parsons. It promises even more strin
gent laws, requiring affidavits and
health examinations. Since Connecti
cut’s required “blood test marriage
law,” marriages in that state dropped
by two-thirds, and Greenwich, the Con
necticut Gretna Green, suffered a total
and probably permanent eclipse in that
capacity.
In the meantime, Elkton is little more
than a historic landmark as far as mar
riage is concerned. The “gravy” from
Pennsylvania has evaporated. The theme
song Is not wedding bells but the blues.
It’s curtains for the marriage mills un
less would-be elopers raise such a hue
and cry that the delayed marriage laws
get repealed.