The Marriage Duty Act 1695, also known as the Registration Tax, was a 1695
Act of the Parliament of England
This is a list of Act of Parliament, Acts of the Parliament of England for the years up until 1483.
For Acts passed during the period 1707–1800 see List of Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain. See also the List of Acts of the Parliament ...
which imposed a tax on births, marriages, burials, childless
widower
A widow (female) or widower (male) is a person whose spouse has died.
Terminology
The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed ''widowhood''. An archaic term for a widow is "relict," literally "someone left over". This word can so ...
s, and
bachelor
A bachelor is a man who is not and has never been married.Bachelors are, in Pitt & al.'s phrasing, "men who live independently, outside of their parents' home and other institutional settings, who are neither married nor cohabitating". ().
Etymo ...
s over the age of 25.
It was primarily used as a revenue raising mechanism for
war on France and as a means of ensuring that proper records were kept by
Anglican church
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the ...
officials. The tax was found ineffective and abolished by 1706.
[Gibson, Jeremy. The Hearth Tax, Other Later Stuart Tax Lists, and the Association Oath Rolls: FFHS, 1996.]
See also
*
Bachelor tax
A bachelor tax is a punitive tax imposed on unmarried men. In the modern era, many countries do vary tax rates by marital status, so current references to bachelor taxes are typically implicit rather than explicit; and given the state of tax la ...
References
External links
* https://www.british-history.ac.uk/statutes-realm/vol6/pp568-583
Acts of the Parliament of England
1695 in law
Marriage, unions and partnerships in England
1695 in England
Marriage law in the United Kingdom
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