Wives and mistresses in eighteenth-century Scotland

Throughout the eighteenth century and beyond, under Scottish law mutual con sent was the only thing required to constitute an irregular but legally bin ding marriage. If either party denied that a marriage existed it was open t o the other to raise a declarator of marriage action before Edinburgh Commi ssary Court and provide evidence-for example, letters, or verbal acknowledg ements-which would enable the court to decree that a legal marriage existed . Witnesses' perceptions of disputed relationships emerge from the records. Less than a third of the women whose cases were contested succeeded in pro ving a marriage, and accounts of cases in which women were decreed to be wi ves and those in which they were decreed to be mistresses reveal what a fin e line there was between the two.