What is a Marriage Bond? Posted on October 21, 2025

A marriage bond is a written statement of intent to marry. Such documents were in common use in North Carolina counties before 1868 when the authority to record marriages was transferred to the Register of Deeds. After that date, the only public record of a marriage was the marriage license.

Before 1868, folks getting married would post a marriage bond. That is, the prospective groom had that responsibility.

To acquire a marriage bond, the prospective groom and one or more bondsmen agreed to forfeit a sum of money if for some reason the marriage did not take place. One reason for a marriage not being possible might be that one or both of the parties was/were already married. Another barrier might be the existence of consanguinity, which occurred when the prospective bride and groom were too closely related.

You can find the names of the prospective groom and prospective bride on the bond, but the parents were not typically included. Marriage bonds were filed in the county of the bride’s residence. Also included were the names of the bondsman or bondsmen and the witness or witnesses.

While working on the Scott Family genealogy, I came across the marriage bond for Samuel Scott and Nancy Bryan(t) Scott. The document was hand written and dated February 17, 1794. Nancy’s last name seems to have a little extra mark, possibly the letter “t.” We do think, however, from other genealogical records that her last name was in fact Bryan.

In 1794, when Samuel and Nancy decided to marry, Samuel was thirty years old and Nancy was twenty one.

At that time, Samuel was required to file a marriage bond in the amount of four hundred pounds. We don’t use pounds as currency any more, but even so, this seems like a huge amount of money. Samuel’s bondsman was James Mebane. The witness was someone named A. B. Bruce.

Here is an image of the marriage bond between Samuel and Nancy.