Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/74

 _54 Hijlory of Domejiic Manners charader of the Anglo-Saxons. In the firfl place, before the introdu6tion of Chriftianity, marriage was a mere civil inftitution, conlifted chiefly in a bargain between the father of the lady and the man who fought her, and was completed with few formalities, except thofe of feafling and rejoicing. After the young lady was out of the control of her parents, the two fexes were on a footing of equality to each other, and the marriage tie was fo little binding, that, in cafe of difagreement, it was at the will of either of the married couple to feparate, in which cafe the relatives or friends of each party interfered, to fee that right was done in the proportional repayment of marriage money, dowry, &c,, and after the feparation each party was at liberty to marry again. This flate of things is well illuftrated in the Icelandic flory of the Burnt Njal, recently tranllated by Dr. Dafent, and it was not abolilhed by the fecular laws, after the converiion of the Anglo-Saxons to Chriftianity, marriage ftill continuing to be, in fait, a civil inftitution. But the higher clc-gy, at lealt, who were thofe who were moft ftrongly infpired with the Romilli fentiments, difapproved entirely of this view of the marriage Itate, and, although the Saxon priefts appear not to have helitated in being prefent at the fecond marriages after fuch feparations, they were apparently forbidden by the eccleliaitical laws from giving their bleffing to them.* With fuch views of the con- jugal relations, we cannot be furprifed if the aflbciating together of a man and woman, without the ceremonies of marriage, was looked upon without difgult 3 in fa6t, this was the cafe throughout weftern Europe during the middle ages, in fpite of the doctrines of the church, and the oflspring was hardly confidered as difpoffelfed of legal rights. It would be eafy to point out examples illuftrating this flate of things. Again, the prieflhood among the unconverted Saxons was probably, as it appears among the Icelanders in the flory of the Burnt Njal jult alluded to, a a layman to marry, with a dispensation, a second time, " if his wife desert him " (^gyf his ivif atfyl'6), but the priest was not allowed to give his blessing to the marriage, because it was a case in which the church enjoined a penance, the per- formance of which it would be his duty to require. But the meaning of the Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical laws on this subject is rather obscure. fort
 * This, I suppose, is the meaning of the canon of Alfric (No. 9), which allows