674 KEPORT— 1880. 



marriage, should not be required to wait by giving fifteen days' notice, but a licence 

 should at once be granted to consummate tlieir wishes for the immediate solemnisa- 

 tion of their marriage contract ; the same facilities being rendered to the poor as to 

 the rich, as ' marriage is honourable to all.' 



The publication of banns, it is admitted, is of great antiquity. We have traces 

 of or reference to it in the early part of the second century, in the treatises of the 

 Fathers, Ignatius and TertuUian. But although this ancient mode of notice of 

 marriage, viz., the publication of banns, has existed for more than eight hundred 

 years in this country, the pubhcation of them at this period of time is quite unsatis- 

 factory. 



What useful purpose can now be served by them, let anyone attest who has 

 attended divine service at Manchester Cathedral, or any parish church in a densely 

 populated localitj-. That such publication of intended marriages by banns is utterly 

 impracticable the late Registrar-General has proved by recording his decided and 

 valuable opinion, and to this verdict we respectfully submit. Every useful purpose 

 would be secured by the mere fact of a registered notice from the contracting 

 parties, accompanied with a true declaration of facts, exacted upon pain of the 

 penalties of perjury, that no legal impediment existed. Yet those who prefer the 

 pubhcation of their banns of marriage may be permitted to enjoy this luxury ; but 

 in no case should the publication of banns be required as a condition either of the 

 lawfulness or the regularity of marriage. All preliminary requirements should be 

 regarded as directory, and none of them as essential to the validity of marriage, 

 or in any wise to invalidate it. 



No minister of religion or ci\'il officer should arbitrarily, or without a sufficient 

 legal reason, interpose impediments to the reception of notices of marriage, or to 

 the granting certificates thereof. On the other hand, all undue or illegal facilities 

 to marriage should be severely pvmished. 



All penalties of felony assigned to mmisters or civU officers in dereliction of their 

 duties should be reduced to those of misdemeanour. A certificate of notice by any 

 beneficed clergj^man should be a sufficient authority for parties to be married in 

 another parish, if they respectively desire it. No clergj'man should be relieved 

 from the obligation imposed on him by the law or sect to which he belongs ; but the 

 time and place of marriage are matters of which the State should take no cog- 

 nizance ; canonical hom-s of marriage, havmg reference to the sacrament of the 

 mass, in which Protestants are not interested, shoidd by Act of Parliament be 

 abolished. As a matter of history, we know that marriage in churches was not 

 established till the twelfth centurj^, by the ordinance of Pope Imiocent III. a.d. 

 1200. 



Consensual or pre-contract marriages, per verba de prcesenti, et per verba de 

 future, stibsequente copula, though agreeable to the civil law {cmisensus facit 

 matrimoniuni) , must not be revived in England, now abolished by stat. 4 Geo. IV. 

 c. 76, A.D. 1823. In Scotland they are now legalised, as well as marriages by 

 repute ; but marriages legalised in that khigdom, and ratified by the decrees or 

 decision of Scotch Courts, should be recognised as being legal to the status of the 

 said parties in England. 



Let Mr. Monsel's Act (26 & 27 Vict. c. 90), with respect to the registration of 

 Roman Catholic marriages in Ireland, instead of being directory, be rendered, by 

 Act of Parliament, imperative. 



The Canon Law of Europe does not — it never did — ^form a part of the Law of 

 England. It does as to marriage in Scotland. But the laws of the CoimcU of 

 Trent were never acknowledged in England. But latterly, in the formerly excepted 

 Provinces of Ireland, the canons of the Council of Trent are revived. Hence 

 arise the dire conflict of the laws of marriage ui the three kingdoms in the adminis- 

 tration of justice, and the cancelling iu England of one of the most important con- 

 tracts of aU social relations which in one of the two other sister kingdoms may be 

 held valid. And all this through the glorious xmcertainty of the laws of marriage, 

 as appears in grievous suits of litigation. 



But Cicero has wi'itten : 



Indiynum est in civitate, quce legibus contineatur, discedi a legibus. 



