couple-beggar
English edit
Etymology edit
Originally a verb-noun compound, "one who couples beggars"; later extended to cases where the spouses were not destitute.
Noun edit
couple-beggar (plural couple-beggars)
- (historical) One who, for a fee, performs an unauthorised wedding service, especially for poor people (originally beggars).
- Synonym: buckle-beggar
- 1836, Mrs S.C. Hall, Harry O'Reardon, Or, Illustrations of Irish Pride[1], page 13:
- Yet you'd have no license, but be married by beggarly bans ! [...] Sure it's wonderful you don't seek out a couple-beggar, and get married like the heathens in the time of Nebecudnazar !
- 1994, Dympna McLoughlin, “Women and sexuality in nineteenth century Ireland”, in The Irish Journal of Psychology, volume 15, pages 266–275:
- these destitute paupers believed themselves to be married, since they had paid a small sum of money to a 'couple beggar' and in return he performed a rudimentary ritual over them.
References edit
- Appendix 2: Report by Mr. Herbert Wood on certain registers of irregular marriages celebrated by unlicensed clergymen, known as couple-beggars. Thirty-third report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records and Keeper of the State Papers in Ireland pp.22–29 [Cmd.1176] (1902)
- John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary