MARRIAGE 



3660 



MARRIAGE 



and males below twenty-one. The legal age 

 limit is generally established according to the 

 old Roman law, under which females of twelve 

 and males of fourteen reach marriageable age, 

 but custom has entirely abolished such early 

 marriages. The statutes of England and Can- 

 ada still retain this decision, and deviation from 

 this rule is the result of public opinion de- 

 manding a more mature age, rather than legal 

 measures. It is now understood, if not actually 

 demanded by the law, that in Great Britain 

 and its dominions the parties to a marriage, 

 unless with full consent of the parents, must 

 have reached in the woman's case eighteen 

 years and in the man's, twenty-one years. 



In the United States the tendency is to raise 

 the average marriage age, which is now sixteen 

 years for women and eighteen for men, and to 

 insist on the consent of parents or guardians if 

 both contracting parties are not of legal age. 

 In Wisconsin in 1913 a law was passed and de- 

 clared constitutional, which requires medical 

 proof of the soundness of health of both par- 

 ties to the marriage. This statute aroused 

 world-wide discussion, for it was a radical meas- 

 ure indicating an entire change of public opin- 

 ion as to the rights of a state to take legal 

 measures to promote healthful citizenship (see 

 EUGENICS). 



History of Marriage. In primitive times, 

 women were the common property of the horde 

 or tribe, and there was no attempt at division 

 by families. Children were known as the sons 

 and daughters of certain women, but knew no 

 fathers. When men came to abandon the no- 

 madic life (see NOMAD LIFE), settled in com- 

 munities and divided the land so that each man 

 had his own property, they began to select their 

 women and made them a part of their personal 

 effects. In those days possession, however ob- 

 tained, was the only form of marriage, the 

 woman having no status except as a slave. 

 Every man claimed the woman he captured in 

 war; all women became wives and slaves. The 

 captured wife was not highly prized; as long as 

 there were tribes to fight and conquer wives 

 were plentiful. When there was no war of 

 conquest to supply them, the custom of the 

 purchase of wives was introduced; this tended 

 to make wives more valuable. Among savage 

 nations the custom of wife capture remained in 

 practice for centuries, and among so-called 

 civilized nations it was countenanced. So 

 deeply rooted was the custom of wife capture 

 that long after it had given place to wife pur- 

 chase it was usual for a man to go through the 



form of capturing his wife, with the consent of 

 her parents. The early history of Greece, 

 Rome and Northern Europe shows that before 

 the Christian Era wife purchase had been in- 

 troduced, though wife capture had by no means 

 completely died out. 



In England and Canada at the present day a 

 marriage ceremony performed by a duly or- 

 dained clergyman of the Episcopal Church is 

 legal and binding, but in England a marriage 

 ceremony performed by a nonconformist minis- 

 ter is not recognized unless validated by the 

 presence of a registrar of civil marriages. If it 

 is the intention of the contracting parties to 

 be married in church, English law demands 

 that due notice must be given by publication in 

 the church of the "banns," or announcement of 

 the names and residences of the two parties on 

 three consecutive Sundays previous to the mar- 

 riage, except where a license has been received 

 from the duly appointed authorities to dispense 

 with such announcement. See BANNS OF MAR- 

 RIAGE. 



It has been held in international law that the 

 captain of a ship may legally marry two per- 

 sons desirous of entering into a matrimonial 

 contract, provided there is no immediate pos- 

 sibility of obtaining the services of a duly- 

 ordained clergyman or justice of the peace, and 

 that the particulars of the wedding be entered 

 in the ship's log book. Under English law a 

 warrant from the secretary of state is necessary 

 before a captain may act as a marriage officer. 

 The law relating to marriage in Scotland differs 

 from that of the rest of Great Britain. The 

 statement by one of two persons, man or 

 woman, in the presence of witnesses, that the 

 other is his or her wife or husband, as the case 

 may be, may be held to constitute a legal 

 marriage. 



Civil Law. The Canadian marriage laws are 

 in harmony with those of England, but each 

 province of the Dominion has its own special 

 legislation on the subject. Barrie makes inter- 

 esting use of this fact in his Little Minister, 



Illinois, New Hampshire, Ohio, Indiana, 

 Kansas, Arkansas, Nevada, Washington, North 

 and South Dakota, Montana, Louisiana, Ore- 

 gon, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nebraska, Utah 

 and Wisconsin prohibit the marriage of first 

 cousins by blood, while New Jersey prohibits 

 the marriage of any person who has been con- 

 fined in any public asylum as an epileptic, or 

 feeble-minded patient, without a certificate oi 

 recovery signed by two physicians, also stating 

 that there can be no danger of transmission. 



