Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

Gretna-Green marriage

A marriage entered into in a jurisdiction other than where the parties reside to avoid some legal impediment that exists where they live; a runaway marriage. ( Gretna Green is a Scottish village close to the English border that served as a convenient place for eloping English couples to wed. "A 'Gretna-Green marriage' was a marriage solemnized in Scotland by parties who went there to avoid the delay and formalities required in England .... In the United States, the term describes marriages celebrated between residents of a State who go to a place beyond and yet near to the boundary line of an adjoining State, on account of some advantage afforded by the law of that State." William C. Anderson, A Dictionary of Law 496 (1889).