serious penalties. Hence the necessity of a sound, uniform marriage law for the United Kingdom, as simple and certain as possible, without too much interfering with what may be considered the lex loci contractûs, or allow the marriage recognised as legal in one kingdom to prevail as legal through every other kingdom throughout the world.

In attempting to remedy the confusion of the marriage laws certain clerics are very clamorous in demanding conformity to the canon law as the panacea; against this, every one endowed with practical wisdom would protest. The enactments, or dicta of canonists, were framed for a state of semi-barbarism, when the clergy were the sources of civilization, and were able by their spiritual influence, to give considerable effect to the decrees they promulgated. But let it be remembered, as Lord Chief Justice Tindal stated to the House of Lords, in 1843, that the Canon Law of Europe does not, and never did, as a body of laws, form part of the law of England. This has been long settled and established law. Truly, we made Canons in Saxon times, and at the Conquest, in favour of priestly benediction being essential to a valid marriage; but it was our own Canon Law, independent of the See of Rome.

According to the ancient Canon Law, although marriage was regarded as a sacrament, no religious rites were, prior to the Council of Trent, deemed essential and indispensable to the celebration of matrimony. When the plea of espousals was interchanged between a man and a woman of physical, moral, and ecclesiastical capacity; the Sacrament was considered as having been received by both, and the indissolubility of their union could not be disputed. As truly, Lord Brougham averred in the House of Lords, "The Council of Trent was never received or acknowledged in England." Sanctius (De Matrimonüs) affirms the validity of the nuptial contract without a priest, before the Council of Trent. As Lord Chancellor Campbell observed, in the case of Beamish v. Beamish, in the House of Lords: "So strongly was the maxim of Civil Law (consensus nou concubitus facit matri

monium") understood to be the universal law in Christendom,
that a large majority of the bishops, assembled in the
Council of Trent, protested against the power of the church
to alter it, and the old Canon Law is still in force in every
Roman Catholic State wherein the decree of the Council of
Trent has not been received. In the case of the Queen v.
Millis, Lord Campbell likewise observed: "The decree of the
Council of Trent, respecting the solemnization of marriage,
requires the presence of the parish priest, or some other priest
specially appointed by him, or the bishop; but even under this
decree, the priest is present merely as a witness; it is not
that he should perform any religious service, or in any way
join in the solemnity. This view of the subject is illustrated
by the case of Lord and Lady Herbert.* The decrees of the
Council of Trent were never received in Scotland, † no more
than in England. The Canon law appears to be the basis of
the matrimonial law of Scotland, according to Craig. Totam
hanc questionem pendere a jure pontificio. The decrees of this
Council of Trent are now valid in Ireland among the Roman
Catholics, who considered them published throughout the
greater part of Ireland from time immemorial, except in the
Roman Catholic communion in Dublin, Kildare, Ferns, Ossary,
Meath, and Galway, where they had force of law on the 1st
of January, 1828, quite modern. And, again, the decrees of
the Council of Trent were never admitted as of authority in
France. The Ordinance of Blois, art. 44; the edict of Henry
IV. of 1606; and the declaration of Louis VIII. 1639, art. 1,
constituted the marriage law of that kingdom before the
Revolution. Nevertheless, the decrees of the Council of
Trent are the laws in several countries of Europe at the
present day. Solemnization of marriage was not used in
church before the Ordinance of Pope Innocent the Third, who
3 Phill. 58. 2 Hagg. Consist. Rep. 263.
2 Hagg. C. R. 82.

Craig. lib. 2 dieg. 18, s. 17; 2 Hagg. Cons. R. 70.
§ 1 Burge on British Law, 175.

2 Hagg. c. 4, 272; 3 Phill. R. 63, 61.

filled the Papal chair from 1198 to 1216, before which the man came to the house where the woman inhabited and carried her with him to his house, and this was all the ceremony.* As Protestants, we do not regard matrimony as a sacrament, and the recorded marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, Gen. xxiv. 40-67, being without the detail of any religious ceremony whatever. We, therefore, must maintain that marriage for civil purposes is valid without any religious sanction; yet in a Christian country it is proper and salutary to add a religious service to receive a Divine blessing. At the same time, whilst we make some provision for civil marriages, as did the Code Napoleon, we need not require, as that code does, that all marriages antecedently shall be first contracted before the civil magistrate, by a purely civil ceremony of the simplest and shortest description, to render it valid marriage in the eye of the law; and then to receive a certificate from the Mayor or his deputy, at the Hotel de Ville or Maison Communale du arrondisement, before any Minister of Religion can perform a religious ceremony. Our Legislature need only be concerned with three primary considerations as the basis of a good code of matrimonial legislation. I. That the matrimonial contract forming the basis of domestic life should be unequivocal, so that no persons should be able to entertain a doubt as to the validity of the contract into which they have entered. 2. That there should be public notice of this contract, so that any one endowed with a right to prevent it should have the best practical opportunity of doing so. 3. That the evidence. of marriage should be at once secured, and preserved in the shape most readily available for future use, whether to establish legitimacy, or to prevent bigamy.

LICENSES FOR MARRIAGE.-Licenses or dispensations from banns were originally intended exclusively for the use of persons of noble and illustrious quality, but that it is

Bunting's case, Moore, 170; Vin. Abr. Marriage (F.) Bingham's Antiquities of the Church Book, 22, vol 7, 8vo. ed., 1829. pp. 203-277.

† 25th Article of the Church of England.

evident the usages of two centuries past, have extended them to the convenience of other classes of society. The privilege of a special license is still restricted to persons of condition, the children of nobility, Privy Councillors, Members of Parliament, Baronets, or Knights. The stamp duty by 55 Geo. III., c. 184 is £5. It provides for marriage “at other meet and convenient place than a church." It was first conferred by 25 Hen. VIII., c. 21, then 4 Geo. IV., c. 76, sec. 20, and then by 6 and 7 Will. IV., c. 85, s. I.

BANNS OF MARRIAGE.-Banns are of great antiquity. They were universal in the Western church, and seem to have originated in the Primitive church, of which usage traces may be found as early as the time of Tertullian, and even of Ignatius. Now it is becoming for the married, and for those to be married, to ratify their union, that the marriage may be solemnised, as in the presence of God, and not according to concupiscence.* Unde sufficiam ad enarrandam felicitatem ejus matrimonü, quod ecclesia conciliat et confirmatoblatio, et obsignat benedictio.t Whence it may suffice for explaining the happiness of the marriage state, because the Church unites, the offering establishes, and the blessing seals. The canons enjoining thrice repeated publication of banns were made in England in the reign of King John 1200, of Edward II. and Edward III., 1322 and 1328; and on the two last occasions reference is made to the decree of the Council of Lateran, held 1216, inflicting the punishment of three years' suspension from office on priests who should officiate or be present at marriages where banns had not been duly asked.

So the canon of Archbishop Simon Mepham, Archbishop of Canterbury, made at a Synod in St. Paul's, London in 1328, in the third year of the reign of Edward III, mentions the perils arising from irregular marriages requires the suffragans to prevent them, and adopts the canon of the Council of

* Ignatius and Polycarp.

Tertull ad Uxor, lib. 11, cap 2.

Lateran, inflicting on the clergyman celebrating a clandestine marriage, the punishment of suspension for three years. At the reformation, the Rubric in both the Books of King Edward VI, and that of Queen Elizabeth, required the publication of banns on three separate Sundays, or Holydays, in the service time, when the congregation was present. By the 62 canon of the church of England 1603 and 4, the celebration of marriage without a faculty or licence, except the due publication of banns for three several Sundays, subjected the minister to suspension per triennium ipso facto; thereby declaring merely what was the ancient and established law of the Church. As three years suspension for some clergymen had no terror an Act was passed in 1753, which made such an offence felony, and punished it by transportation for fourteen years. This Act was in this and most other of its provisions very closely followed by the Act 4 Geo. IV. c. 76, which now regulates marriages in the Church of England. In the final Revision of the Prayer Book in 1662 a special form of words was appointed to be used by the minister in the publication of banns. The rubric prefixed to the office of matrimony directs that this publication of banns shall take place in the time of divine service immediately after the second lesson. In Ireland it always takes place during the morning service, after the Nicene Creed. Some great judicial authorities hold that in England by the Act 26 Geo. II. c. 33, and by necessary consequence the Act 4 Geo. IV. c. 76 the publication of banns in our Churches, must take place after the second lesson.

Marriage by banns is, however, unsatisfactory. It is a matter of the gravest importance, because a very large proportion, about 62 per cent., of the whole number of marriages in England and Wales, are celebrated by banns. They are increasing every year; and the Registrar General declares that the present system of publication of banns affords facilities for clandestine and illegal marriages. Whoever has attended Manchester Cathedral, or any other Parish Church of a densely populated locality, will be ready to assent