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character in married life is religious and not political, 

 and belongs to a higher world than the business of 

 civil society. 



Amogst all the nations who have a national religion 

 the conclusion of a marriage is one of the most solemn 

 religious acts ; and I think there are few primitive and 

 uncivilized nations who do not surround a wedding with 

 a variety of religious ceremonies. Amongst the Greeks 

 the betrothed sacrificed to Hymen. In the first days of 

 Rome, when religion ruled all the civil relations of man, 

 the conclusion of a marriage was solemnized with the 

 the greatest religious awe, though we are now-a-days 

 not able to understand the solemnity of the scene. 

 Whilst the priest was performing the sacrifice the bride 

 and bridegroom were sitting upon sheepskins and eating 

 salt-cakes. Yet Plinius says of this singular form of mar- 

 riage, which was called coiifarreatio : "in sacris nihil reli- 

 gtosius confarreationis vinculo eratP This marriage, con- 

 cluded in presence of ten witnesses, could not be dis- 

 solved, for the so-called diffareatio was no divorce. 

 Though the moral foundation of the coiifarreatio was like 

 the Christian idea of matrimony as developed in the 

 catholic chiirch, and fixed by the Council of Trent, its 

 political consequences breathe still the spirit of eastern 

 patriarchal despotism. The two principal eflects of the 

 confarreatio were the manus and the i^atria potestas. The 

 authority which the manus gave to the husband over his 

 Avife, was almost without limits. If the law seemed to 

 presume that the exercise of this authority would be 

 tempered by conjugal affection, maritalis affectio, which 

 was considered as the necessary condition of matrimony 

 it forgot that law has to provide for the weakness 

 and perversity of man. The manus was a terrible 

 instrument in the hands of a brutal husband which ho 

 could use short of the very murder of his wife. In this 



