MARRIAGE ACT.

Another bill, transmitted from the upper house, met with a reception equally unfavourable among the commons, though it was sustained on the shoulders of the majority, and thus forced its way to the throne, where it obtained the royal approbation. The practice of solemnizing clandestine marriages, so prejudicial to the peace of families, and so often productive of misery to the parties themselves thus united, was an evil that prevailed to such a degree as claimed the attention of the legislature. The sons and daughters of great and opulent families, before they had acquired knowledge and experience, or attained to the years of discretion, were every day seduced in their affections, and inveigled into matches big with infamy and ruin; and these were greatly facilitated by the opportunities that occurred of being united instantaneously by the ceremony of marriage, in the first transport of passion, before the destined victim had time to cool or deliberate on the subject. For this pernicious purpose, there was a band of profligate miscreants, the refuse of the clergy, dead to every sentiment of virtue, abandoned to all sense of decency and decorum, for the most part prisoners for debt or delinquency, and indeed the very outcasts of human society, who hovered about the verge of the Fleet-prison to intercept customers, plying like porters for employment, and performed the ceremony of marriage without license or question, in cellars, garrets, or ale-houses, to the scandal of religion, and the disgrace of that order which they professed. The ease with which this ecclesiastical sanction was obtained, and the vicious disposition of those wretches, open to the practices of fraud and corruption, were productive of polygamy, indigence, conjugal infidelity, prostitution, and every curse that could embitter the married state. A remarkable case of this nature having fallen under the cognizance of the peers, in an appeal from an inferior tribunal, that house ordered the judges to prepare a new bill for preventing such abuses; and one was accordingly framed, under the auspices of lord Hardwicke, at that time lord high chancellor of England. In order to anticipate the bad effects of clandestine marriages, this new statute enacted, that the banns should be regularly published three successive Sundays, in the church of the parish where the parties dwell; that no license should be granted to marry in any place, where one of the parties has not dwelt at least a month, except a special license by the archbishop; that if any marriage should be solemnized in any other place than a church or a chapel without a special license, or in a public chapel without having published the banns, or obtained a license of some person properly qualified, the marriage should he void, and the person who solemnized it transported for seven years; that marriages by license, of parties under age, without consent of parent or guardian, should be null and void, unless the party under age be a widow, and the parent refusing consent a widow married again: that when the consent of a mother or guardian is refused from caprice, or such parent or guardian be non compos mentis, or beyond sea, the minor should have recourse for relief to the court of chancery; that no suit should be commenced to compel a celebration of marriage, upon pretence of any contract; that all marriages should be solemnized before two witnesses, and an entry be made in a book kept for that purpose, whether it was by banns or license, whether either of the parties was under age, or the marriage celebrated with the consent of parent or guardian, and this entry to be signed by the minister, the parties, and the witnesses; that a false license or certificate, or destroying register books, should be deemed felony, either in principal or accessary, and punished with death. The bill, when first considered in the lower house, gave rise to a variety of debates; in which the members appeared to be divided rather according to their real sentiments, than by the rules of any political distinction; for some principal servants of the government freely differed in opinion from the minister, who countenanced the bill; while on the other hand, he was on this occasion supported by certain chiefs of the opposition, and the disputes were maintained with extraordinary eagerness and warmth. The principal objections imported, that such restrictions on marriage would damp the spirit of love and propagation; promote mercenary matches, to the ruin of domestic happiness, as well as to the prejudice of posterity and population; impede the circulation of property, by preserving the wealth of the kingdom among a kind of aristocracy of opulent families, who would always intermarry within their own pale; subject the poor to many inconveniencies and extraordinary expense, from the nature of the forms to be observed; and throw an additional power into the hands of the chancellor. They affirmed, that no human power had a right to dissolve a vow solemnly made in the sight of heaven; and that, in proportion as the bill prevented clandestine marriages, it would encourage fornication and debauchery, insomuch as the parties restrained from indulging their mutual passions in an honourable manner, would be tempted to gratify them by stealth, at the hazard of their reputation. In a word, they foresaw a great number of evils in the train of this bill, which have not yet been realized. On the other side, its advocates endeavoured to refute these arguments, and some of them spoke with great strength and precision. The bill underwent a great number of alterations and amendments; which were not effected without violent contest and altercation. At length, however, it was floated through both houses on the tide of a great majority, and steered into the safe harbour of royal approbation. Certain it is, the abuse of clandestine marriage might have been removed upon much easier terms than those imposed upon the subject by this bill; which, after all, hath been found ineffectual, as it may be easily eluded by a short voyage to the continent, or a moderate journey to North Britain, where the indissoluble knot may be tied without scruple or interruption.

GEORGE II. 1727-1760