Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 189, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 August 1911 — Texas Papas May Prevent Elopements [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Texas Papas May Prevent Elopements

FORT WORTH, Tex —Elopements of lovers under the legal age, twentyone for the young man and eighteea for the girl, will be effectually checked tn Texas by the new law adopted by the late legislature and now effective. Under this law no person under the legal age can obtain a marriage license without the written consent of the minor’s parents, and the paper must be acknowledged before a notary public like a deed. If a minor has no parents, a oounty judge’s consent to the union is necessary. If the clerk doubts that either the prospective bride or bridegroom has attained the legal age, he is authorised to require the affidavit of some other than the contracting parties. County Clerk Beavers has Interpreted the law to mean that the wMtten consent of both {parents, properly executed, must be filed, and that the consent of the fa Ither or the mother singly is not suffiI The old law authorised the county ■clerk to require the bridegroom or oth;CT person applying for a marriage 11censo to make affidavit to the ages of

V>e parties, in case of doubt, but this law was frequently and successfully evaded. A common method of evasion was for the young man, if under age, to put a slip of paper, bearing the number 31, in his shoe, and for the girl to put in her shoe a slip of paper with the number 18. and then the man would cheerfully make affidavit that he was “over twenty-one," and with equal sincerity the girl would make affidavit that she was “over eighteen.” In a few instances indictments have been returned against bridegrooms for false swearing, but uniformly the fathers-in-law after a few weeks have decided to make the best of it, and have refused to testify against their unwelcome eons-tn-law.