Some of these laws are truly silly and weird and will definitely make you laugh reading them. Like the fact that there’s a place out there where it’s illegal to forget your wife’s birthday (although maybe that’s actually a good rule and we should have it everywhere).
Others though, while they raise a few eyebrows, are pretty serious. In India, for example, you can’t find out the gender of your baby before it’s born, for pretty dark reasons.
But regardless of how funny or serious they are, all of them have an explanation behind them. It just doesn’t always translate well to modern times.
Take the UK, for example. It’s a country with a very long history and one that’s famous for its formalities and peculiar traditions. So naturally, if we go far enough back, we’re bound to find some very strange laws. It’s just that, well, many of them have remained on the books, even if most people don’t know they technically exist.
As it turns out, there’s a law in the UK where MPs are prohibited from wearing armor in parliament. No one really wears armor these days anyway, right? But as The Guardian notes, it was established by the Bearing of Armour Act, which dates all the way back to 1313.
It was an attempt by Edward II to prevent nobles from threatening to use force when parliament was called. The Earl of Lancaster, apparently, still attended parliament carrying weapons until at least 1319.
Some other unusual regulations in the UK include a part of the 1872 Licensing Act that outlaws being drunk in charge of cattle (so watch yourself after a few pints on the farm).
Then there’s the 1986 Salmon Act, which was intended to ban poaching but somehow makes it illegal to handle salmon in suspicious circumstances. Whatever that means. There’s also a 19th-century law banning the beating of carpets after 8am on streets in London.
Of course, it’s widely recognized that some of these old laws are ridiculous. That’s why the UK has The Law Commission, which is responsible for regularly recommending the removal of outdated regulations.
The Unlawful Games Act 1541, for instance, required every Englishman aged between 17 and 60 to keep a longbow and practice archery on a regular basis. It wasn’t repealed until 1960.
In some countries though, the laws that were enforced a while ago are still very much in use, and it doesn’t look like they plan on changing them anytime soon.
You may have heard that in Singapore it’s illegal to sell gum. Sounds a bit absurd, but no, it’s not because it’ll be stuck in your body for seven years after you swallow it, as we were all told as kids.
