Definition
Ravishment of ward was an offense under English law consisting of the marriage of an infant ward without the consent of the guardian. The term applied where a ward — a minor held under the legal guardianship of another — was taken in marriage, or induced to marry, without the guardian's knowledge or approval. The offense was directed not merely at the ward's own conduct but at any person who procured or participated in such an unauthorized marriage. It was a statutory wrong that ran against the guardian's legal interest in controlling the ward's matrimonial fate, an interest that in feudal and post-feudal England had significant economic as well as protective dimensions.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Ravishment" in modern English typically means the act of carrying someone away by force, or, in an older romantic register, the act of filling someone with intense delight or rapture. "Ward" in common usage refers to a person under the care or protection of a guardian, or to an administrative division of a city or hospital.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's 1913 defines "ravishment" as "the act of carrying away by force or against consent" or "the act of ravishing; violation; rape," and also "a state of being ravished; rapturous delight; ecstasy."
The gap between common and legal meaning here is substantial. Modern readers encountering "ravishment of ward" will almost certainly read "ravishment" as importing forcible abduction or sexual assault. The legal term, however, does not require force, abduction, or any sexual wrong. It describes only the act of marrying a ward without guardian consent — a property-and-custody offense rooted in the feudal system of wardship, not a crime of violence against the ward's person.
Common Confusion
Ravishment of ward is easily and seriously confused with abduction and with rape or sexual ravishment. These are distinct wrongs. Abduction of a ward involved carrying the ward away from the guardian's custody by force. Ravishment of ward, as defined by statute, required only an unauthorized marriage — the wrong was against the guardian's legal right of consent, not necessarily against the ward's physical freedom. A researcher finding "ravishment of ward" in a historical legal text should resist importing the modern connotations of either abduction or sexual assault.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is a near-dead letter in any modern legal system, but it surfaces frequently in historical English legal materials, treatises on feudal tenure, and sources discussing the law of guardianship and wardship in the common law tradition. Several research traps apply.
First, the word "ravishment" in historical sources is used across several distinct legal and non-legal contexts. A researcher searching manuscript records, plea rolls, or early printed reports must distinguish ravishment of ward (unauthorized marriage) from ravishment as forcible abduction, and from the crime of rape. Conflation produces seriously misleading results.
Second, the offense is tightly bound to the English feudal wardship system, in which a guardian — particularly a lord holding wardship by knight service — had the legal right to arrange or approve a ward's marriage, and could extract a money payment if that right was bypassed. The offense is therefore inseparable from the economics of feudal tenure. It makes little analytical sense outside that context and had no meaningful transplant into American law, where feudal tenures were not received.
Third, the statutory basis cited by Bouvier — Statute of Westminster II (13 Edw. I, c. 35) — is the authoritative reference for this offense in the historical sources. Researchers working in English legal history should anchor this term to that statute rather than treating it as a common-law development.
Fourth, American legal dictionaries include this term largely as a matter of completeness and English legal heritage. Its presence in Black's or Bouvier's does not signal American applicability. Researchers in U.S. legal history should treat this as a term of art in English sources only unless specific colonial reception evidence suggests otherwise.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Bouvier's Law Dictionary are in full agreement on the core definition: the marriage of an infant ward without the consent of the guardian. Neither source elaborates on the elements of the offense, the available remedies, or the practical operation of Westminster II beyond Bouvier's citation of the statute. Both entries are brief, reflecting the term's limited practical relevance by the time these dictionaries were compiled.
What the historical dictionaries do not provide is meaningful context: the feudal wardship system that gave the offense its economic bite, the distinction between this offense and related wrongs such as abduction, or any guidance on the penalty structure under the statute. Researchers relying solely on these dictionary entries will have a technically accurate but impoverished understanding of why this offense existed and what it was designed to protect.
Jurisdictional Note
This offense is English in origin and statutory in basis. It has no recognized equivalent in American law. The feudal wardship system from which it derived was not transplanted to the American colonies in operative form. Researchers should treat all references to ravishment of ward as pertaining exclusively to English legal history.