Elopement
Elopement is a marriage which is conducted in a sudden and secretive fashion, sometimes involving a hurried flight away from one's place of residence together with one's beloved with the intention of getting married without parental approval. An elopement is contrasted with an abduction (e.g., a bride kidnapping), in which either the bride or groom has not consented,[1] or a shotgun wedding in which the parents of one (prototypically the bride's) coerce both into marriage.
For other uses, see Elopement (disambiguation).
Controversially, in modern times, elopement is sometimes applied to any small, inexpensive wedding, even when it is performed with parental foreknowledge.[2]
The term elopement is sometimes used in its original, more general sense of escape or flight, e.g. an escape from a psychiatric institution. In this context, elopement (or wandering) can refer to a patient with dementia leaving the psychiatric unit without authorization.[3][2] It has also referred to a married person leaving their spouse in order to run away with a third party.[4]
Background[edit]
Today the term "elopement" is colloquially used for any marriage performed in haste, with a limited public engagement period or without a public engagement period.[2] Some couples elope because they wish to avoid parental or religious objections.
In some modern cases, the couple collude together to elope under the guise of a bride kidnapping, presenting their parents with a fait accompli. In most cases, however, the men who resort to capturing a wife are often of lower social status, because of poverty, disease, poor character or criminality.[5] They are sometimes deterred from legitimately seeking a wife because of the payment the woman's family expects, the bride price (not to be confused with a dowry, paid by the woman's family).[6] In some areas, elopement is met with violent reactions from family members, while in other places eloping has become more accepted.[7]
Examples[edit]
United Kingdom[edit]
In England, a prerequisite of Christian marriage is the "reading of the banns"—for any three Sundays in the three months prior to the intended date of the ceremony, the names of every couple intending marriage has to be read aloud by the priest(s) of their parish(es) of residence, or the posting of a 'Notice of Intent to Marry' in the registry office for civil ceremonies. The intention of this is to prevent bigamy or other unlawful marriages by giving fair warning to anybody who might have a legal right to object. In practice, however, it also gives warning to the couples' parents, who sometimes objected on purely personal grounds. To work around this, it is necessary to get a special licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury—or to flee somewhere the law did not apply.
For civil marriages notices must be posted for 28 clear days, at the appropriate register office.[8]
In popular culture[edit]
The relationship between Helen and Paris of Troy is sometimes depicted as an elopement instead of an abduction.[17]
Patsy’s Elopement (1915) was a silent episode of an early serial film that deals with the topic humorously created by the Lubin Manufacturing Company.[18]
Searches for elopement photography ideas on Pinterest increased by 128 percent in 2019, with other related terms like "elopements at city halls" and "elopements in forests" also seeing increases in volume.[19]
In contract bridge, an elopement play is a form of trump coup that enables a smaller card to score a trick if it is lying over the higher card of an opponent.[20] If the rank of the card does not matter, it is known as a "pure" elopement; if the rank does matter it is known as a "rank" elopement.