A same-sex couple won the coveted flitch of bacon at the Dunmow Flitch Trials - marking a ground-breaking development in the event's 920-year history.
The Flitch Trials asks couples who have been married for more than a year and a day to prove that "they have not wisht themselves unmarried again", in front of a jury of six maidens and six bachelors.
Dunmow couple Emma Hynds and Emma D'Costa, who have been married for under two years, became the first same-sex couple to bring home the bacon in the trials on Saturday, July 13.
Same-sex couples have been eligible to apply since the law was changed in 2014 to allow same-sex marriage.
The constitution of the Flitch Trials states that couples are allowed to enter if their marriage is recognised under English law. Civil partnerships were therefore ineligible.
The trials - which date back to the 1100s - are held every four years, but the 2020 trials were postponed for two years due to the pandemic.
Entry was first open to same-sex couples in 2016, and again in 2022, but no couples applied.
Emma and Emma, known as 'The Two Emmas', were married in November 2022. Emma Hynds grew up in Dunmow, and she and Emma D'Costa met at their football club. They share a home in Dunmow and a dachshund called Sonny.
The Two Emmas have now made history by bringing home the flitch - which is half a pig cut lengthways and smoked and cured.
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Three other flitches were awarded on Saturday to Jimmy Rowley and Barbara Egerton-Rowley from Northumberland, Ana and Kristian McMaster from Austin, Texas, and Colin and Amanda Linacre from Buckinghamshire.
Couples who win a flitch are chaired' (carried) shoulder-high through the town in the flitch chairs to Market Place, where they take the flitch oath 'kneeling-a-while' on pointed stones.
This year marked another historic first for the trials, as Dunmow architect Laura Cohen was appointed the first-ever female bearer to take part in the procession.
Bearers are the 'humble folk' of Dunmow, whose role is to carry the flitch of bacon and the flitch chairs.
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