Instructions concerning the registration of births, marriages and deaths in Massachusetts : designed for town clerks and physicians / by Oliver Warner.

  • Oliver Warner
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Instructions concerning the registration of births, marriages and deaths in Massachusetts : designed for town clerks and physicians / by Oliver Warner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    31/36 (page 29)
    ination, who resides within the State and continues to perform the functions of his office ; but all marriages shall be solemnized in the city or town in which the person solemnizing them resides, or in which one or both of the persons to be married reside. Section 15. Marriages among the people called Friends or Quakers may be solemnized in the manner heretofore used and prac- tised in their societies. Section 16. Every justice of the peace, minister, and clerk, or keeper of the records of the meeting wherein any marriages among the Friends or Quakers are solemnized, shall make a record of each marriage solemnized before him, together with all facts relating to the marriage required by law to be recorded. He shall also between the first and tenth da^'s of each month return a copy of the record for the month next preceding, to the clerk or registrar of the city or town in which the marriage was solemnized, and shall when neither of the par- ties to a marriage resides in the city or town in which the marriage is solemnized, return a copy of the record of such marriage to the clerk or registrar of the city or town in which one or both of said parties reside. All marriages so returned shall be recorded by the clerk or registrar. Section 17. Every person neglecting to make the returns re- quired by the preceding section, shall forfeit for each neglect not less than twenty nor more than one hundred dollars. Section 18. A justice of the peace or minister who joins persons in marriage contrary to the provisions of this chapter, knowing that the marriage is not duly authorized, shall forfeit not less than fifty nor more than one hundred dollars. Section 19. Whoever undertakes to join persons in marriage knowing that he is not authorized so to do, shall be imprisoned in the jail or confined to hard labor for a term not exceeding six months, or pay a fine of not less than fifty nor more than two hundred dollars. Section 20. [Unintentional informality does not invalidate mar- riage in other respects lawful.] Section 21. The record of a marriage, made and kept as pre- scribed by law by the person before whom the marriage is solemnized, or by the clerk or registrar of any city or town, or a cop} of such record duly certified, shall be received in all courts and places as pre- sumptive evidence of such marriage. Section 22. [Admission of respondent, general repute, &c., com- petent evidence to prove the fact of marriage.] Section 23. [Marriage in foreign countries by a consul or diplo- matic agent valid, and certificate of such consul or agent presumptive evidence thereof.] [General Statutes—Chapter 29.] OF THE PUBLIC RECORDS. Section 10. [Records and files may be inspected and copied. Clerks to certify to transcripts, on payment of a reasonable fee.] Section 13. [Penalties; for altering or muti- lating any record, paper, or written document, a sum not exceeding- fifty dollars,—for wrongfully detaining records, and other documents, fifty dollars.]