couple-beggar

Originally a verb-noun compound, "one who couples beggars"; later extended to cases where the spouses were not destitute.

couple-beggar (plural couple-beggars)

1. (historical) One who, for a fee, performs an unauthorised wedding service, especially for poor people (originally beggars).

   Synonym: buckle-beggar

   • 1836, Mrs S.C. Hall, Harry O'Reardon, Or, Illustrations of Irish Pride‎, page 13:

     Yet you'd have no license, but be married by beggarly bans ! [...] Sure it's wonderful you don't seek out a couple-beggar, and get married like the heathens in the time of Nebecudnazar !

   • 1994, Dympna McLoughlin, “Women and sexuality in nineteenth century Ireland”, in The Irish Journal of Psychology, volume 15, pages 266–275:

     these destitute paupers believed themselves to be married, since they had paid a small sum of money to a 'couple beggar' and in return he performed a rudimentary ritual over them.

• Appendix 2: Report by Mr. Herbert Wood on certain registers of irregular marriages celebrated by unlicensed clergymen, known as couple-beggars. Thirty-third report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records and Keeper of the State Papers in Ireland pp.22–29 [Cmd.1176] (1902)
• John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary