Table of Kindred and Affinity in the Book of Common Prayer

The Table of Kindred and Affinity is a traditional list, printed with many editions of the Book of Common Prayer, setting out relationships within which a man and woman were forbidden to marry. In Anglican use it belongs to the pastoral and canonical surroundings of Holy Matrimony, rather than to the marriage rite itself. The table reflects the concern of the reformed English church that Christian marriage should be ordered by Scripture, public discipline, and the law of the church and realm. Its presence alongside the Prayer Book made questions of kinship, household order, and lawful marriage a familiar part of Anglican pastoral practice.

Purpose and Content

The table identifies prohibited degrees of kindred and affinity. Kindred refers to blood relationship, while affinity refers to relationship created by marriage. The list therefore includes near blood relations, such as parent and child or brother and sister, and also certain relations by marriage, such as a wife's mother or a brother's wife.

The table does not function as a ceremonial text. It is not said by the priest during the marriage service, nor is it a collect, rubric, or exhortation. Its purpose is disciplinary and pastoral: it states the relationships in which marriage is not to be solemnized. In this way it supports the Prayer Book's understanding of marriage as a public estate, entered into before God and the congregation, and governed by more than private consent.

In the classic Prayer Book tradition, the marriage service requires that no lawful impediment be known before the couple may be joined together. The table helped define one class of such impediments. It also stood in relation to the public calling of banns of marriage, by which possible objections could be raised before a wedding took place.

Place in Anglican Tradition

The table is especially associated with the English Prayer Book tradition and appears in connection with the received formularies of the Church of England. It was commonly printed with the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, where it served as a practical companion to the rite of matrimony and to ecclesiastical discipline. Its authority was not merely devotional; it belonged to the legal and canonical environment in which the Prayer Book was used.

For Anglicans, the table illustrates the close relation between liturgy and church order. The Prayer Book is not only a collection of prayers but also a book that presumes a disciplined Christian community. Marriage, baptism, burial, ordination, and the daily offices are all framed by assumptions about doctrine, pastoral oversight, and public accountability. The table makes this especially clear because it touches on a matter in which family life, civil law, and ecclesiastical authority overlap.

The table also shows the continuing influence of older Western Christian rules about marriage within post-Reformation Anglicanism. The English Reformation rejected certain medieval canonical developments, but it did not treat marriage as a purely civil contract or as a matter of individual preference. Instead, the Prayer Book settlement retained a moral and ecclesial account of marriage grounded in Scripture and ordered by public law.

Theological and Pastoral Significance

The theological importance of the table lies in its assumption that marriage is a holy estate with objective boundaries. The Prayer Book marriage rite describes marriage in relation to mutual society, the ordering of family life, and the wider good of the church and commonwealth. The table supports that vision by excluding unions judged contrary to Scripture and Christian discipline.

Pastorally, the table gave clergy a clear standard for determining whether a proposed marriage could proceed. It also protected the public character of Christian marriage by making impediments something more than private scruple. In parishes where the Prayer Book shaped ordinary religious life, such material reminded both clergy and laity that marriage belonged within the visible order of the church.

Later Anglican provinces have varied in the way they print, apply, or legally interpret prohibited degrees. Civil marriage law has also changed in many jurisdictions. Nevertheless, the Table of Kindred and Affinity remains historically important for understanding the classical Prayer Book approach to marriage. It is a concise example of how Anglican liturgy has often carried doctrinal, pastoral, and canonical assumptions in forms that are adjacent to, but not identical with, the spoken rites of worship.

References

• The Book of Common Prayer (1662), material appended to the form of solemnization of matrimony.
• The Canons of the Church of England, sections concerning marriage and prohibited degrees.
• J. H. Blunt, The Annotated Book of Common Prayer, notes on the solemnization of matrimony and related tables.