Page:English laws for women in the nineteenth century.djvu/155

143 take place in some parish church, or public chapel, unless by special licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Lord John Russell's Act, of 1836, permits persons, on the contrary, to be married according to any form they choose; not sacerdotally; merely by repairing to the Registrar, and giving certain notices, and procuring certain certificates; so as to acquire a right to have the. ceremony performed, in places registered and appropriated for the purpose. Marriage therefore, in England, is a religious ceremony or a mere civil contract, at the pleasure of the parties: thus meeting the requisitions of all sects of the Protestant Church. It is besides,—practically,—a sacrament for the poor, and a civil contract for the rich: as the rich break it by application to Parliament; and the poor are put frequently on their trial for bigamy, from not being able to go through that expensive form. It is,—practically,—a sacrament for the wife, and a civil contract for the husband; the husband can break it almost as a matter of course, on proof of the wife's infidelity; the wife, though nominally able to apply for a divorce, seldom or ever obtains one: I believe there are but three cases on record in the House of Lords, of marriages broken on the wife's petition. The law of Scotland and the law of England are utterly different.

In Scotland, the right of the wife to divorce, is equal to that of the husband; and a Scotch lady in Scotland can divorce her husband a vinculo, so as to marry again. It is notorious, that the heads of two of our noblest families made a residence in Scotland the preliminary of a divorce of this nature, which set both parties free; proceedings being taken, in one of the instances, by the wife against the husband.

In Scotland, marriage legitimatizes children born before wedlock: it does not legitimatize them in England: so that the same man,—inheriting property in both countries,—would succeed as heir to his father north of the Tweed, and be debarred as a bastard south of that boundary. In Scotland, a mere declaration of marriage before witnesses, the mere addressing