Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/499

 H. ROBINSON: ANTICIPATIONS 485 it also anticipated our statute of 1837, and even the French codes. ^ In accordance with it, the daughter of Saint John, C. J., was married in his presence ; and in actions of debts and of ejectment marriages between Friends were held valid. But at the Restoration the greater part of these irregular rites were and had to be confirmed.^ The statutes of 1645 and 1653 improved also on the Tudor and Stuart registra- tion system; that system did officially what private records (such as the Liber obit alls at Queen's College, Oxford) had long done; it chronicled the performance of baptisms, wed- dings, and burials. The Republican method chronicled the occurrence of the birth, the making of the marriage con- tract, but the burial — not the death. ^ The statute of 1650 against incest being penal, marriages took place within degrees which it did not prohibit, though the law existing did: many of these were pronounced invalid after the Res- toration.* Women were deservedly influential among the Republicans ; men's extravagance was restrained by statute ; a bill intended to restrain women's, and much needed, was thrown out ; and, not to speak of other movements in their favour, the protection given under Charles II. by Hale and others to wives against their husbands. ^ That men's titles to their estates in land should be thor- oughly known had become of great importance. Many an acre had been sequestrated and brought into the market ; ^ Milman, " I.atin Christianity," bk. 3, c. 5: " Manuale Ebor." and "Man. Sarisb.:" Dr. Goldingham in Bunting v. Lepingwell, Moore, 170: Chaucer, "The wife of Bathe's prologue:" Menochius, " De praesump- tionibus" (1595), 3, 2. 7, et 11 cc: Dalrymple v. Dalrymple, 2 Hagg. C. R. 64, 67-70: Jurieu, "Hist.Counc. Trent," bks. 7 and 8: Stt. 6 & 7 Will. iv. c. 85 ; 10 & 11 Vict. c. 58 : Le Code Civil, §§ 75, 76, 165 : Le Code Penal, §§199, 200. The ring is a trace of coemptio: cp. Ben- jamin, "contract of sale." Stt. 12 Car. ii. c. 33; 13 Car. ii. c. 11. And see St. 6 & 7 Will. iii. c. 6, §§ 63, 64. »Cp. the 70th Canon with 6 Somers's Tracts, 179; Stt. 1645, c. 51; 1653, c. 6, §§ 4, 10, 11: and these again with St. 30 Car. ii. c. 3, and the acts since 1820. St. 1653 c. 6, extended to Ireland. Murgatroyd ; Collet v. Collet; Hinks v. Harris. Cp. Selden, " De succes- tionibus," etc., cc. 14, 15; " Uxor Ebraica," bk. 1, cc. 12-15. »2 Lev. 128; 1 Str. 477; 1 Sid. 113, 116: 3 Keble, 433. Cp. St. 1656, c. 26, with " Pari. Hist." 1650, June 7.
 * 1 Hagg. C. R. app. 9 n.: Burnet, "Hale:" North, "Guilford:"
 * See Harrison v. Burwell: Hill and Wife v. Oood: Watkinson v.