Page:An introduction to Roman-Dutch law.djvu/117

 Rh MARRIAGE 77 the Churches or from the Council-House or other places where justice is administered, on three successive Sundays or Market Days : which banns shall be granted and made to the end that any one who wishes to advance any let or hindrance, whether of blood, affinity or pre-contract of marriage, by reason of which the marriage should not go forward, may do so.' If no such let or hindrance was alleged, the marriage was shortly afterwards celebrated by a minister of rehgion or by the magistrate. In the latest Dutch Law the civil marriage was indispensable, a rehgious ceremony being left to the option of the parties.^ With regard to the solemnization of marriage at the present day the reader is referred to the statute law of the several colonies.^ Section 3. The Legal Consequekces of Marriage The legal consequences of marriage may be considered, The legal first, in relation to the personal status and capacity of the q°^Jgg ^f wife ; secondly, in respect of the property of the spouses, marriage ; A. Effect of marriage on the personal status and capacity A. Effect of the wife. This consists principally in the marital "/age^as re- power of the husband over the wife,* with its consequences, garde the, . - . n personal which are as follows : status and L The wife acquires the rank or dignity of the husband, capacity which after the husband's death she retains durante wife: viduitate. She acquires also her husband's forum and (a) rank, . . '- forum, and domiCll. domioil ; . Though she may have been of full age before marriage, (b) she be- on marriage she is deemed to be a minor under the ^"^o'on guardianship of her husband, the paternal power ceasing.* marriage ; Like a minor, she has no independent persona standi V. d. K. Th. 84 ; V. d. L. 1. 3. 6 (ad fin.). (South Africa) 1 Maasdorp, chap, iv, and Nathan, Common Law of 8. A., vol. i (2nd ed.), p. 224 ; (Ceylon) Ord. No. 19 of 1907 ; (British Guiana) Ord. No. 25 of 1901. V. d. L. 1. 3. 7. " Voet, 23. 2. 40. s Gr. 1. 5. 19 ; Van Leeuwen, 1. 6. 7.