Overview

I have a particular interest in family law and legal history. I have written on all aspects of modern family law, but the focus of my research is on the history and current law of marriage, cohabitation, bigamy, and divorce.

In 2015 I was seconded to the Law Commission to work on their scoping paper Getting Married (published in December 2015) and from August 2019 to July 2022 I acted as specialist advisor to the Commission on their Weddings Project. From September 2020 to March 2022 I was also a co-investigator on a Nuffield-funded project on non-legally binding wedding ceremonies led by Dr Rajnaara Akhtar investigating why marriage ceremonies occur outside the legal framework in England and Wales. 

I regularly give talks to groups of family historians, and have appeared on programmes such as Who Do You Think You Are? and A House Through Time to unravel tricky points of legal history relating to divorce and bigamy.

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Research

My research interests lie in the overlapping areas of marriage, cohabitation, bigamy and divorce. 

My first monograph, Marriage Law and Practice in the Long Eighteenth Century: A Reassessment (Cambridge University Press, 2009) looks at how couples married in eighteenth-century England (shattering a few myths about common-law marriage, broomstick weddings and hand-fasting along the way). My second, The Legal Regulation of Cohabitation: From Fornicators to Family, 1600-2010 (Cambridge University Press, 2012) demonstrated the rarity of cohabitation in earlier centuries and how the common-law marriage myth only emerged in the 1970s. I have just completed a third monograph, Tying the Knot: The Formation of Marriage 1836-2020, which will be published by Cambridge University Press in October 2021. My next monograph will be an exploration of bigamy in England and Wales from the seventeenth century to the present day.

I have collaborated with a number of scholars on edited collections, including Responsible Parents and Parental Responsibility (Hart, 2009), co-edited with Jonathan Herring and Stephen Gilmore; Sharing Lives, Dividing Assets (Hart, 2009), co-edited with Joanna Miles; Landmark Cases in Family Law (Hart, 2011), co-edited with Stephen Gilmore and Jonathan Herring; Fifty years in Family Law: Essays for Stephen Cretney (Intersentia, 2012), co-edited with Chris Barton; Marriage Rites and Rights (Hart, 2015), co-edited with Joanna Miles and Perveez Mody; A Cultural History of Law in the Age of Enlightenment (Bloomsbury, 2019), co-edited with John Snape and Cohabitation and Religious Marriage: Status, Similarities and Solutions (Bristol University Press, 2020), co-edited with Rajnaara Akhtar and Patrick Nash. My sole-edited collections include Family Life and the Law: Under One Roof (Ashgate, 2007) and Cohabitation and Non-Marital Births in England and Wales, 1600-2012 (Palgrave, 2014). I am currently working with Joanna Miles and Daniel Monk on an edited collection exploring 50 years of the Divorce Reform Act 1969, to be published by Hart.

 I have also written a number of books for family historians. Marriage Law for Genealogists (Takeaway, 2012) examines how, when, why and where our ancestors married, while Divorced, Bigamist, Bereaved? (Takeaway 2015) examines second marriages (some legal, some not). A Noble Affair: The Remarkable True Story of the Runaway Wife, the Bigamous Earl, and the Farmer's Daughter (Takeaway, 2013), written with Joanne Bailey and Julie Shaffer, tells the story of Henry Cecil, 10th Earl of Exeter, and his rather colourful marital history, while The Rights and Wrongs of Royal Marriage: How the law has led to heartbreak, farce and confusion and why it must be changed (Takeaway, 2011) examines the special rules that apply to the marriages of members of the Royal Family.  

Research group links

• Bracton Centre for Legal History Research (BCLHR)
• Network on Family Regulation and Society

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Projects

• When is a wedding not a marriage? Exploring non-legally binding ceremonies - funded by: Nuffield Foundation

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Supervision

I welcome applications from research students in any area of contemporary family law or its history, and particularly in areas concerning marriage, cohabitation and bigamy. I am currently supervising the following PhD students:

• Rebecca Shaw, 'The Augustan Marriage Plot: A Narratological Study of the Leges Iuliae' (with Genevieve Lively, University of Bristol)
• Zaina Mamoud - 'California Baby: An examination of surrogacy regulation in the UK as compared to California, taking account of the experiences of surrogates in both jurisdictions' (with Anne Barlow and Katrina Wyatt)
•  Alison Talbot, 'The Legal Administration of the Bishops of Worcester and Exeter, 1200-1500' (with Anthony Musson)
• Tania Barton - 'What are the consequences for all affected when a person with dementia, as a consumer, enters into a contract with a business?' (with Severine Saintier)
  
  

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Publications

_{Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.}

| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2004 |

2024

• Gordon-Bouvier E. (2024) Relational Vulnerability: A Theory of Family, Unpaid Work, and the State, Research Handbook on Marriage, Cohabitation and the Law, Edward Elgar.

2023

• Probert R. (2023) Murder, inheritance and family provision in the Golden Age of English detective fiction, Inheritance Matters: Kinship, Property, Law, Hart.
• Probert R, Dodsworth T. (2023) Contracts and relationships of love and trust, Shaping the Law of Obligations: Essays in Honour of Professor Ewan McKendrick KC, OUP.
• Blake S, Probert R, Barton T, Akhtar R. (2023) Independent Celebrant-Led Wedding Ceremonies: Translating, Tweaking, and Innovating Traditions, Sociological Research Online, DOI:10.1177/13607804231211443.
• Probert R, Pimm-Smith R, Smith L, Harwood J. (2023) Cretney and Probert’s Family Law, Sweet & Maxwell.
• Mahmoud Z. (2023) Surrogates Across the Atlantic: Comparing the Impact of Legal and Health Regulatory Frameworks on Surrogates’ Autonomy, Health, and Wellbeing.
• Probert R. (2023) Rites and Wrongs: Anglican Ceremonies after Legal Weddings, 1837–57, Studies in Church History, volume 59, pages 312-331, DOI:10.1017/stc.2023.14. [PDF]
• Probert R. (2023) Introduction, Family & Community History, volume 26, no. 1, pages 2-5, DOI:10.1080/14631180.2023.2205735.
• Probert R. (2023) Religious-only marriages in England and Wales: taking the long view, The Sharia Inquiry, Religious Practice and Muslim Family Law in Britain, Routledge, 11-26.
• Probert R. (2023) Avoiding Attention? Assessing the Reasons for Register Office Weddings in Victorian England and Wales, Family & Community History, volume 26, no. 1, pages 49-70, DOI:10.1080/14631180.2023.2205736. [PDF]
• Probert R, Akhtar RC, Blake S. (2023) Belief in Marriage, Bristol University Press, DOI:10.51952/9781529230499.
• Probert R. (2023) Rites and Wrongs: Anglican ceremonies after legal weddings, 1837-1857, Studies in Church History, volume 59, pages 312-331.
• Pywell S, Probert R. (2023) Postponing the day of your dreams? Modern weddings and the impact of COVID-19, Families, Relationships and Societies, volume 12, pages 431-446.

2022

• Probert R. (2022) Divorced from reality? Literary depictions of divorce, 1971-2021, Fifty Years of the Divorce Reform Act, Bloomsbury Publishing.
• Miles J, Monk D, Probert R. (2022) Fifty Years of the Divorce Reform Act 1969, Bloomsbury Publishing.
• Probert R. (2022) Debates on Marriage and Cohabitation, Justice for Everyone: The Jurisprudence and Legal Lives of Brenda Hale, Cambridge University Press.
• Probert R. (2022) Eekelaar’s “modest proposal” for reforming the law of marriage, Family Matters – Essays in Honour of John Eekelaar, Intersentia.
• Probert R. (2022) Secular or Sacred? The Ambiguity of 'Civil' Marriage in the Marriage Act 1836, Journal of Legal History, volume 43, pages 136-160.
• Probert R, Akhtar R, Blake S, Barton T, Vora V. (2022) The importance of being authorised: the genesis, limitations and legacy of the Marriage Act 1898, Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, volume 10(3), pages 394-417.
• Probert R, Pywell S, Akhtar R, Blake S, Barton T, Vora V. (2022) Trying to get a piece of paper from City Hall? The availability, accessibility and administration of the register office wedding, Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, DOI:10.1080/09649069.2022.2067651.
• Probert R. (2022) Escaping detection: illegal second marriages and the crime of bigamy, Journal of Genealogy and Family History, volume 6, pages 27-33.

2021

• Probert R. (2021) History and the Law: a love story, Social History, volume 46, no. 1, pages 103-104, DOI:10.1080/03071022.2021.1851526.
• Probert R. (2021) Tying the Knot The Formation of Marriage 1836–2020, Cambridge University Press.
• Probert R. (2021) Interpreting choices: what can we infer from where our ancestors married?, Journal of Genealogy and Family History, volume 5, pages 75-84.
• Probert R. (2021) Getting Married: The Origins of the Current Law and Its Problems, Ecclesiastical Law Journal, pages 255-266.
• Probert R, Pywell S. (2021) Love in the time of COVID-19: a case-study of the complex laws governing weddings, Legal Studies, volume 41, pages 676-692.

2020

• Probert R. (2020) State and Law, A Cultural History of Marriage in the Age of Enlightenment, Bloomsbury.
• Probert R. (2020) Determining the Boundaries Between Valid, Void and "Non-Qualifying" Marriages: Past, Present and Future?, Cohabitation and Religious Marriage: Status, Similarities and Solutions.
• Akhtar R, Nash P, Probert R. (2020) Cohabitation and Religious Marriage Status, Similarities and Solutions, Bristol University Press.
• Probert RJ, D'Arcy-Brown L. (2020) The transportation of bigamists in early nineteenth-century England and Wales, Journal of Legal History, volume 40, no. 3, pages 223-252, DOI:10.1080/01440365.2019.1666508.
• Probert RJ. (2020) 'State and Law', A Cultural History of Marriage in the Age of Empires (1800-1920).

2019

• Miles J, Probert R. (2019) ‘Civil partnership: ties that (also) bind’, Child and Family Law Quarterly, volume 31, no. 4, pages 303-320.
• Probert RJ. (2019) Civil Marriage Ceremonies From 1837.
• Probert R, Snape J. (2019) A Cultural History of Law in the Age of Enlightenment.
• Owen G, Probert RJ. (2019) Marriage, dispensation and divorce during the years of Henry VIII's "great matter": a local case study, Law and Humanities, pages 76-94.
• Probert RJ. (2019) R v Hall and the changing perceptions of the crime of bigamy, Legal Studies.

2018

• Probert R. (2018) Strange Bedfellows: Marriage in the Age of Women’s Liberation, The Journal of Legal History, volume 39, no. 3, pages 343-345, DOI:10.1080/01440365.2018.1532666.
• Probert R, Saleem S. (2018) The Legal Treatment of Islamic Marriage Ceremonies, Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, volume 7, no. 3, pages 376-400, DOI:10.1093/ojlr/rwy031.
• Akhtar RC, Probert R, Moors A. (2018) Informal Muslim Marriages: Regulations and Contestations, Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, volume 7, no. 3, pages 367-375, DOI:10.1093/ojlr/rwy036.
• Moors A, Akhtar RC, Probert R. (2018) Contextualizing Muslim Religious-Only Marriages, Sociology of Islam, volume 6, no. 3, pages 263-273, DOI:10.1163/22131418-00603001.
• Probert RJ. (2018) The royals have finally embraced modern romance.
• Probert RJ. (2018) Blog - Rebecca Probert and Rajnaara Akhtar, ‘Integration: seeing the bigger picture’, 21 March 2018, Law & Religion UK, https://wp.me/p2e0q6-b7E.
• Probert RJ. (2018) Religious content in civil ceremonies.
• Pywell S, Probert RJ. (2018) Neither sacred nor profane: the permitted content of civil marriage ceremonies, Child and Family Law Quarterly, volume 30, no. 4, pages 415-436. [PDF]
• Probert RJ. (2018) A Uniform Marriage Law for England and Wales?, Child and Family Law Quarterly, volume 30, no. 3, pages 259-278.
• Probert RJ, Harding M, Dempsey B. (2018) A Uniform Law of Marriage? The 1868 Royal Commission Reconsidered, Child and Family Law Quarterly, pages 217-235.
• Pimm-Smith R, Probert RJ. (2018) Evaluating marital stability in late-Victorian Camberwell, Family and Community History, volume 21, pages 38-50, DOI:10.1080/14631180.2018.1470412.
• Probert RJ. (2018) The presumptions in favour of marriage, Cambridge Law Journal, volume 77, no. 2, pages 375-398, DOI:10.1017/S0008197318000429.
• Probert RJ. (2018) ‘Undoing the marriage: the resort to annulment’, After Marriage in the Long Eighteenth Century: Literature, Law and Society, Palgrave Macmillan.
• Probert RJ. (2018) ‘English exports: invoking the common law of marriage across the Empire’, Marriage, Law and Modernity: Global Histories, Bloomsbury, 168-183.
• Probert RJ. (2018) Hayatleh v Modfy: presuming the validity of a known ceremony of marriage, Child and Family Law Quarterly.

2017

• Probert RJ. (2017) Could Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have a civil marriage?.

2016

• Probert RJ, Harding M. (2016) IEL Family and Succession Law: England and Wales 37, Kluwer.
• Probert RJ. (2016) ‘Disquieting thoughts: who will benefit when we are gone?’, Current Issues in Succession Law, Hart.

2015

• Herring J, Probert R, Gilmore S. (2015) Great Debates in Family Law, Macmillan International Higher Education.
• Probert R, Harding M. (2015) Cretney and Probert's Family Law.
• Probert RJ. (2015) ‘From this Day Forward? Pre-marital Cohabitation and the Rite of Marriage from the 1960s to the Present Day’, Marriage Rites and Rights, Hart, 57-76.

2014

• Probert RJ. (2014) ‘Freedom of testation in Victorian England’, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Ageing in Nineteenth-Century Culture, Routledge.
• Probert RJ. (2014) ‘The context of illegitimacy from the 1920s to the 1960s’, Cohabitation and Non-Marital Births in England and Wales, 1600-2012.
• Probert R. (2014) Cohabitation and Non-Marital Births in England and Wales, 1600-2012, Springer.

2004

• Barlow A, Probert R. (2004) Regulating marriage and cohabitation: Changing family values and policies in Europe and North America—an introductory critique, Law and Policy, volume 26, no. 1, pages 1-11, DOI:10.1111/j.0265-8240.2004.00160.x.

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External impact and engagement

 Professor Rebecca Probert is recognised as a leading authority on marriage and its relation to family history and genealogy.She has given talks at over 100 events focused on family or local history, including the Register of Qualified Genealogists inaugural conference in 2018 and workshops at the Society of Genealogists and the National Archives. She is regularly commissioned to write articles and provide answers to readers’ queries in the leading genealogy magazine Who Do You Think You Are?and has also written for Discover Your Ancestors, Family Tree, BBC History Magazineand numerous local family history publications. She has appeared a number of times on the popular BBC series Who Do You Think You Are?, drawing on her research into the law relating to bigamy and divorce to provide advice to Kim Cattrall, Martin Shaw, Maggie Beer and Olivia Colman on their ancestors’ legal entanglements. She has also appeared on A House Through Time, Historic Houses, Harlots, Heroines and Housewives, and Heirhunters. 

She also contributed to the Channel 4 documentary, The Truth About Muslim Marriages(21 November 2017). In the programme she explained how the current law evolved and in fact applies the same rules to Muslim marriages as to other non-Anglican marriages, Jewish and Quaker marriages alone being treated differently. She has engaged with policy-makers on the issue of marriage law reform and is currently seconded to the Law Commission to work on their Weddings Project. 

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Teaching

Modules taught

• LAW2017 - Land Law
• LAWM686 - Approaches to Research in Law (ESRC)

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Biography

Rebecca Probert read jurisprudence at Oxford and then worked as a Research Assistant at the Law Commission for two years before studying for an LLM at University College, London. She subsequently taught at the Universities of Aberystwyth (1997-99), Sussex (1999-2002) and Warwick (2002-17) before joining Exeter Law School in April 2017.

She convened the family law section of the Society of Legal Scholars from 2009-12 and edited the Society's newsletter, The Reporter, from 2011-2015. In 2019-20 she was President of the Society and organised the Society's first-ever virtual conference in September 2020, with over 550 delegates from across the world. 

In 2018 she was made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and in January 2019 she was Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Alberta, delivering a programme of classes and talks on family law and legal history. In July 2022 she was made a Fellow of the British Academy.

In 2014 she received the British Association for Local History's Publication Award for '"A Banbury Story": cohabitation and marriage among the Victorian poor in "notorious Neithrop"' (2012) 19(1) Cake and Cockhorse 2-17, and in 2018 she was awarded the SLS Best Paper Prize for 'R v Hall and the changing perceptions of the crime of bigamy', subsequently published in (2019) 39(1) Legal Studies 1-17. 

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