OUR MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE LAWS. 225 



contract of the value of twenty dollars, subject to the verdict of a jury 

 or the decision of a court, that is so easily avoided and so shamefully 

 dissolved as the contract of marriage. The facts show that the law 

 and the courts enforce the obligations of a delinquent debtor with 

 more severity than the obligations of this contract upon which the 

 happiness of the family, the morality of society, and the perpetuity of 

 the State depend. The marriage contract is of a higher inspiration, 

 and has a broader obligation, than a mere contract for the payment of 

 money, or for the transfer of property, or for co-operation in business. 

 It is one in which society is more deeply interested, one by which 

 society is more seriously affected ; and society has the right to demand 

 that the mutual obligations shall be faithfully kept and lawfully en- 

 forced. 



This- lack of uniformity in the laws, both in their formulation and 

 execution, is the result of the diversity of sources from which they ema- 

 nate. Each State is its own authority, and determines for itself the con- 

 ditions upon which the marriage relation of its people may be entered 

 into or dissolved ; and, perhaps, the social and moral sentiment of the 

 people of a State can not be more equitably determined than by observ- 

 ing the character and use of its laws governing marriage and divorce ; 

 forthe various degrees of restriction and laxity in marriage and divorce 

 have marked the progress and decline of all peoples and nations ever 

 since the days when Adam and Eve went out of paradise and Moses 

 wrote the law on Mount Sinai. Several States still retain upon their 

 statute-books the common-law prohibition of marriage between per- 

 sons related by consanguinity, or affinity, nearer than the third degree ; 

 while other States have progressed to that degree of liberality on the 

 road to individual freedom and universal happiness which permits a 

 person to marry, if not his grandmother, at least the daughter of his 

 wife by a former husband. So we find that while two persons within 

 certain degrees of relationship may lawfully marry in one State, they 

 are prohibited from marrying by the laws of another State ; and that 

 while a marriage between certain persons is voidable only in one State, 

 it is absolutely void under a similar law in another State. 



It would be interesting to review at length the marriage and divorce 

 laws of the several States, and note their want of uniform operation ; 

 but, for the purposes of this article, which must be brief, I shall con- 

 fine myself to a comparative notice of the laws of two or three States 

 only. In Ohio, " male persons of the age of eighteen years, and female 

 persons of the age of sixteen years, not nearer kin than second-cousins, 

 and not having a husband or wife living, may be joined in marriage," 

 provided that if the male person is under the age of twenty-one, and 

 the female person is under the age of eighteen, they shall first obtain 

 the consent of their parents, respectively. The marriage may be sol- 

 emnized by an ordained minister of any religious congregation who 

 has first obtained a license authorizing him to solemnize marriages ; or 

 VOL. xxni. 15 



