continuance, they had gone through the ceremony. When a fleet came in and the sailors flocked on shore to spend their pay in drink and among prostitutes, they were speedily beleaguered, and 200 or 300 marriages constantly took place within a week. Among the more noted instances of clandestine marriages we find that of the Duke of Hamilton with Miss Gunning, that of the Duke of Kingston with Miss Chudleigh, that of Henry Fox with the daughter of the Duke of Richmond, that of the poet Churchill, who at the age of seventeen entered into a marriage which contributed largely to the unhappiness of his life. The state of the law seemed, indeed, ingeniously calculated to promote both the misery and the immorality of the people, for while there was every facility for contracting the most inconsiderate marriages, divorce, except by a special Act of Parliament, was absolutely unattainable. It is not surprising that contracts so lightly entered into should have been as lightly violated. Desertion, conjugal infidelity, bigamy, fictitious marriages celebrated by sham priests, were the natural and frequent consequences of the system. In many cases in the Fleet registers names were suppressed or falsified, and marriages fraudulently antedated, and many households, after years of peace, were convulsed by some alleged pre-contract or clandestine tie. It was proved before Parliament that on one occasion there had been 2,954 Fleet marriages in four months, and it appeared from the memorandum-books of Fleet parsons that one of them made 577. in marriage fees in a single month, that another had married 173 couples in a single day. The evil was of considerable standing, and some attempts had been made to remedy it. By a law of William III. any clergyman celebrating a marriage without licence was subject to a fine of 100l.,' but this penalty was not renewed at each violation of the Act, and the offender was able by a writ of error to obtain a delay of about a year and a half, during which time he carried on his profession without molestation, made at least 400l. or 500l., and then frequently absconded. No penalty whatever attached to the public-house keeper, who hired the clergyman, and in whose house the ceremony was performed. Another Act, passed in 1712, after reciting the loss the revenue 1 6 & 7 William III. c. 6; 7 & 8 William III. c. xxxv. experienced from these practices, raised the penalty incurred by the priest to imprisonment, but this also it was found possible to evade. To meet the evil it was necessary to re-model the whole marriage law. The first step in this direction was taken by Lord Bath, who, when attending a Scotch trial, was struck by the hardship of a case in which a man, after a marriage of thirty years, was claimed by another woman on the ground of a pre-contract; but the preparation of a measure on the subject soon passed into the hands of the Chancellor, Lord Hardwicke, who succeeded, in 1753, in carrying it successfully through Parliament. His Act provided that, with the exception of Jewish and Quaker marriages, no marriage should be valid in England which was not celebrated by a priest in orders, and according to the Anglican liturgy, that the ceremony could not be performed unless the banns had been published for three successive Sundays in the parish church, or unless a licence had been procured, and that these licences in the cases of minors should be conditional upon the consent of the parents or guardians. The special licence by which alone the marriage could be celebrated in any other place than the parish church, could only be issued by the Archbishop, and cost a considerable sum. All marriages which did not conform to these provisions were null, and all who celebrated them were liable to transportation.' This measure is extremely important, as introducing into English legislation a principle which has even now by no means attained its full recognition, but which is evidently destined to become one day supreme. According to the theological theory which was adopted by the law of England, and was long absolute in Christendom, the Church alone has a right to determine what constitutes the validity of a marriage, and when that marriage is once consummated it is absolutely indissoluble, and possesses a mystical sanctity altogether irrespective of its influence upon society. In opposition to this view there has grown up in the last century a conviction that it is not the business of the State to enforce morals, and especially any particular theological conceptions of duty, that its sole end should be to increase the temporal happiness of the people, and that the re 126 George II. c. 33. strictions it imposes on individual liberty can only be justified, and should be strictly limited, by this end. According to this view the ecclesiastical and the legal conceptions of marriage are entirely distinct. Marriage should be regarded by the legislator merely as a civil contract of extreme importance to the maintenance of the young, the disposition of property, and the stability of society; and it is the right and the duty of the State, with a sole view to the interests of society, to determine on what conditions it may be celebrated, annulled, or repeated. At In some respects these two views coincide, while in others they conflict. Every statesman will admit that the purity and stability of the marriage state are social ends of great importance, and that a religious sanction contributes to secure them. the same time the legislator will, in some respects, be more severe, and in others more indulgent than the divine. Considering marriage as a contract involving momentous civil consequences, he may insist that it should be entered into publicly, formally, and deliberately, may lay down in the interests of society certain restrictive conditions, and may absolutely refuse, when those conditions are not complied with, to recognise its existence, or to punish those who violate or repeat it. On the other hand, in all questions relating to marriages of consanguinity or to divorce, State interference with the liberty of individuals can only be justified on utilitarian grounds. If, for example, the question be that of marriage with a deceased wife's sister, a legislator imbued with this spirit will consider it wholly irrevelant to discuss whether such marriages were or were not forbidden in the Levitical code, whether the Levitical code is binding upon a Christian, whether ecclesiastical tradition favours or condemns them. The sole question for him to decide is whether they produce such a clear preponderance of social evils as would justify him in restricting in this respect the natural liberty of the subject. If they do not, they should be permitted, and those who regard them as theologically wrong should refrain from contracting them. A similar principle applies to the difficult question of divorce. At first sight nothing can appear more monstrous than that when two persons have voluntarily entered into a contract with the single purpose of promoting their mutual happiness, when 492 experienc the pries to evade whole 1 taken struck marri the g sure cellc it wit ma br li k they find by experieure tot to dissolve it, the law- consent, or have been entered in. E the happiness of their lives. Nor are the men effects is ་ ་གས་ can present stronger temptations. A moralist may sonably doubt whether even open profligacy is more - than a legitimate union, in which hatred has taken the love, and the unspoken day-dream of each partner is ss the burial of the other. added that even if the law imposed no restrictions on perpetual monogamous attachments would always be the --mmon, for the simple reason that they are those which are onducive to the happiness of men. They have in their t one of the strongest of all human sentiments-the on of custom. In no other case is this cohesion so powerrin no other is the relation so close or so constant. Putside the idle cant of satirical writers, every candid observer dmit that the death of a husband or a wife is usually, withxception, the greatest calamity that can befall the survivor. a such a voluntary cohesion severance would be very rare ess there were some strong reason to overcome it, and when trong a reason exists it would probably be advisable. The h of children, which makes the stability of the family uliarly necessary, contributes in itself to secure it, for every ild joins its parents by a new bond. Nature has abundantly ovided for the stability of the marriage state when it promotes ppiness. Why should the law prevent its dissolution when it roduces pain? can pre The answer is that these arguments underrate the violence of passion which is, perhaps, the most dangerous and unruly in human nature, and at the same time neglect to make sufficient allowance for the inequality of the sexes. In the marriage contract the woman is the weaker; she is usually the poorer; her happiness is far more absolutely bound up with her domestic life than the happiness of a man. Her vigour passes before that of her husband. If cast out at a mature age from the domestic circle her whole life is broken, and the very probability of such a fate is sufficient to embitter it. If divorce could always be effected without delay, difficulty, expense, or blame; if the law provided no protection for the weaker partner against those violent passions which may be conceived by one sex in mature age, and which are rarely inspired by the other except in youth, it is easy to predict what would be the result. The |