Historical/Marital Question???
 

I developed a family tree on Ancestry for my ladyfriend's family so Ancestry occasionally sends me hints and information out of the clear blue. Yesterday I was sent her parents' wedding license and she was surprised to learn that they had traveled some 85 miles from Madison, WI to Dubuque, Iowa (just across the Mississippi River) to get married. They were both 26 years old so that would seem to address any issue of parental consent. They were married 3/28/1941. Can anyone think of a reason that two 26 year olds, neither from Iowa, would travel across state lines to get married at that time in history???

I would have no idea other than maybe privacy. Everything was put in the local newspapers at the time. Maybe for whatever reason, they did not was their marriage license noted in the local area so people did not know.

Folks from North Carolina drive across the state line to Dillon, South Carolina and get married. The wedding venues take care of everything and it's fast and legal.

I wonder if blood tests were required in WI, but not in Iowa?

There could be all sorts of reasons. People elope for a number of reasons:

1. Sometimes the families want to make such a big deal of the wedding that the couple are overwhelmed.

2. Sometimes the couple don't want to wait for the official wedding, which often must be planned way in advance, putting off the date. They can get married privately and start their life together then have the public wedding for everyone else's benefit. This was far more common back in the time listed because more people for marriage society frowned on "shacking up" before marriage. And frankly, there are those whose beliefs wouldn't tolerate shacking up so they made things official privately but did it earlier than the public wedding.

3. Sometimes the families didn't approve of the prospective spouse and forbade the union. One way to force the issue was to privately get married when and where the family couldn't intervene and then announce it.

I remember that my wife and I were so overwhelmed by the hoopla surrounding our wedding that by the time of the ceremony we just wanted to elope. We didn't, but getting it done was a relief.

Bob

Me and my wife just didn’t want a huge production. And then, if you only invite a couple of family members or friends, everybody else gets ticked off, so it was easier for us to just schedule a little vacation, and get married far away from home.

Hard to know,,, my guess is either for procedural ease, or eloping to get away from familial entanglement

In my family's case the state line was also the traditional deep-south line (KY/TN), and they traveled to get married on the other side to satisfy a long-standing family tradition.

In your case, it so happens that Wisconson is East North Central, and Iowa is the West North Central, of the Midwest, divided by the MS river. Can't think of a reason for traveling from one to another, but then I also don't know why that boundary exists at all.

Riverboat gambling?

J/k, but Dubuque IS right on the river, could have simply been a case of getting married and honeymooning in the same location.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned waiting periods involved with marriage licenses. Some states had them, others did not. (Still do...Texas requires 72 hours unless you qualify for an exception.) If the decision to get married came quickly, crossing a state line wasn't a huge issue if it meant finding an available justice of the peace or getting an immediate license and avoid waiting 24 hours, 3 days or even a week to solemnize the event. Wisconsin still has a 6 day wait! So maybe that figures in.

Ditto, blood tests. Apparently, only Montana still requires one today, but back then, many states did.

Also, while America's direct involvement in WWII wouldn't come around for another 9 months, people in the military (mainly males) were still being posted to new assignments, and sometimes suddenly, which could cause engaged couples to move up plans for weddings. Possibility?

As it is, I'm rooting for the most obvious answer: these were "good kids" who were waiting 'til marriage to indulge their natural romantic tendencies, and they'd simply waited long enough!

I'm sure other reasons exist and you folks have already mentioned several. Let us know if you find out anything definitive.

Cheers,

Dirk

Our biggest issue was that my mother tried to impose all sorts of things on it. Since we paid 100% for it ourselves we put our foot down and were no inviting my cousins, stepson's, in-laws, neighbors just because we "have to"


Turned out that, even to this day, three decades later our own wedding was the most fun wedding we've ever been to.....an absolute fun party.

You didn't mention this as an issue, but if the bride and groom were of different races or faiths, there were plenty of miscegeny laws still on the books in the early 1940s and interfaith weddings might not have easily found a sympathetic clergyman back then, so hopping the state line for a JP would make sense. Since my wife's family is Jewish and mine is (sorta generic) Christian, even when we got married in the 1980s we opted for a friendly judge vs. a rabbi, priest or pastor. Just sayin'...

Dirk

Both bride and groom were caucasian. Groom was 4F from Selective Service. Groom was Lutheran, not sure about bride....

Ergo, I'm goin' back to the young-love-can't-wait theory myself.

:D

Dirk

I’m with Dirk
 

Different states have different laws on what a license requires. And they have different time periods.

Hence, they may have simply been skipping some red tape.

That’s the most probable solution.

Here’s another:

My wife and I were married in a different state from the one we lived in because we wanted to celebrate with our old friends and family. So I had to apply for an NC marriage license although we were then living in Va.

My third guess would be that someone had a reason for getting a license without it appearing in the local paper.

Maybe that's where the honeymoon was.