46 MARRIAGE AND HEREDITY 



mately this appears to have suggested to the Church 

 the expediency of taking under its control a ceremony 

 which it was powerless to prevent. Down to the 

 eleventh century marriages were made without ecclesi- 

 astical interference. But in the twelfth century 

 Peter the Lombard discovered the institution of the 

 seven sacraments, or the sevenfold operation of the 

 Spirit of God in baptism, the Lord's Supper, confir- 

 mation, penance, orders, extreme unction, and matri- 

 mony ; and the Church soon afterwards adopted this 

 view, with results that have profoundly influenced 

 society down to the present time. In Roman Catholic 

 countries there exists a general feeling that marriages 

 contracted without the agency of the Church are not 

 binding ; and even in England many worthy people, 

 ignorant of history, confound the divine origin of 

 marriage with the performance of the nuptial rite by 

 a clergyman. 



The sacramental view of marriage commended itself 

 to the Council of Trent, which at the same time 

 decreed that adultery did not dissolve the nuptial 

 contract, notwithstanding that divorce for much less 

 weighty reasons had been freely recognised, and 

 indeed encouraged by the Church in the preceding cen- 

 turies. Since the fourteenth century the attitude of the 



