Marriage

It’s much cheaper and easier without rice and old shoes here, but you will always find a few old-fashioned people who like it the hard way. If you are one who has to be respectable, we will give you the lowdown on how to go about it in the area.

(Note: Common law marriages are valid in the District. They are not in Maryland and Virginia, though the former state, while prohibiting such marriages for its own residents, will recognize as binding any such entered into in the District.)

The marriageable ages in the three jurisdictions are 16 for girls and 18 for boys, with parents’ consent; 18 and 21 in D.C. and Maryland, without consent, and 21 and 21 in Virginia. Marriages between first cousins are permitted in all three.

Maryland and Virginia forbid marriages between whites and Negroes or Orientals. Virginia also proscribes American Indians. There are no racial restrictions in the District.

Maryland and Virginia require medical certificates before marriage, but Washington doesn’t. So, if you flunk your Wassermann, come to the District. The waiting time between issuance of license and ceremony is two days in Maryland, four in the District, and none in Virginia. Maryland requires that all marriages be solemnized by a clergyman, which is pretty prissy for that state, where you can get so much without marrying at all.

Both the District and Maryland permit one party of a proposed marriage to take out a license without the consent or knowledge of the other. Sometimes overly-eager ones take out these licenses (which are published) as a means of bringing final pressure on the other person. Recently a 21-year-old Marine shot himself to death after a minister refused to marry him and an unwilling maiden who had not been aware a license was issued.

Washington men are the choosiest in the country when it comes to picking wives. The marriage rate is falling yearly. In 1950, 10,729 licenses were taken out compared to 10,885 the year before and 12,156 in 1948. Meanwhile other cities are reporting increases. These figures are even worse than they read. Many transients come to wed in the District, to avoid blood tests elsewhere or to boast they were hitched in the nation’s capital.