Handfasting: a history of joined hands in Scotland and England

Today the word handfasting conjures up an image of two hands wrapped in a ribbon during an outdoor ceremony. Its history, however, is more legal than romantic. The term comes from the Old Norse handfesta, meaning to conclude an agreement with a handshake, and in the medieval British world it chiefly referred to solemn betrothal, that is, the exchange of promises between two people before witnesses.

A promise that counted as marriage

In medieval canon law marriage was founded on the consent of the spouses. A promise spoken in the present tense, such as «I take you as my wife», was enough to create a valid bond even without a priest; a promise in the future tense, followed by cohabitation, had similar effects. Handfasting belonged to this space: it was the ceremony, often a domestic one, in which the two gave each other their hand and their word.

The Church long sought to bring these unions under its control, requiring banns and celebration in church. In 1563 the Council of Trent made the public form before the parish priest and witnesses compulsory for Catholics. In England and Scotland, which had become Protestant, the question took different paths, and Scotland in particular preserved for centuries forms of marriage based on declaration alone.

The Scottish case and Gretna Green

In England the Marriage Act of 1753, promoted by Lord Hardwicke, required celebration in church with banns and, for those under twenty-one, parental consent. The law did not apply to Scotland, where a mutual declaration before witnesses was still enough. For this reason many English couples fled across the border: Gretna Green, the first Scottish village on the road from Carlisle, became famous for hasty weddings, often held in the blacksmith's shop.

Marriage by simple declaration remained valid in Scotland until the Marriage (Scotland) Act of 1939, which came into force the following year. A residual form, marriage by cohabitation with habit and repute, was abolished only in 2006. Scottish handfasting, then, was not a folkloric curiosity but a long-lasting legal reality, one that has left traces in many parish and court records.

The myth of the trial marriage

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries travellers and antiquarians described handfasting as a «trial marriage» lasting a year and a day, at the end of which the couple could freely separate. Walter Scott made it a narrative element in his novel The Monastery, published in 1820. Modern historians are very cautious: documentary evidence for such a widespread custom is scarce, and many descriptions seem to be picturesque exaggerations.

In the twentieth century the word was taken up by neopagan movements and by Wicca, which built new ceremonies around binding the hands with cords or ribbons. From there the English expression tie the knot, which already existed, was often linked to handfasting, even though the knot as a nuptial symbol has older and wider roots, from the knot of Hercules worn by the Roman bride to many folk traditions.

Historical handfasting was therefore above all a promise before witnesses, with precise legal consequences; the contemporary version is a symbolic ceremony born of a revival. Knowing the difference takes nothing away from the charm of joined hands, but returns the gesture to its history: that of a pact which, for centuries, was enough on its own to make two people a family.