style of inverted adulation, he proposes to honour the woman by offering himself to her as her husband. Wheatly" affirms, that "the design of it is to express that the woman by virtue of this marriage has a share in all the honours and titles which are due or belong to the person of her husband." This is a periphrasis, which the words will hardly bear, which will occur to none but a professed student in theology; and even if its meaning could be established it is implied in the subsequent clause, for these personal honours are but a part of the worldly goods with which the man endows the woman. Hooker labours to interpret the words in three dif ferent senses; 1. by contrasting the honour of lawful marriage with "the stain, blemish, or disgrace," of unlawful intercourse; 2. as "the imparting of that interest in the body unto another, which none had before save only ourselves:" but to this sense he himself objects that the words should, under this interpretation, be used by both parties: 3. "in professing that his intent was to add by his person worship and honour unto hers, he took her plainly and clearly unto wife. . . . The worship that grew unto her being taken with declaration of this intent was, that her children became by this means legitimate and free; herself was made a mother over his family; last of all, she received such advancement of state as things annexed unto his person might augment her with: yea, a right of participation was thereby given her both in him and in all things that were his. This does somewhat more plainly appear

"Illustration of Common Prayer.

by adding also that other clause, With all my worldly goods I thee endow. The former branch having granted the principle, the latter granteth that which is annexed thereunto"." But does not the term "all my worldly goods" include all possible advantages which may arise from the marriage? And is any of these meanings so clearly and definitely expressed as to fall within the apprehension of all persons who are required to use the words? Selden translates them, "Corpore meo te dignor:" the American liturgy resolves the difficulty by omitting the clause; and until the words shall be more distinctly explained than they hitherto have been, this concise example may not be unworthy of imitation.

The succeeding clause, " And with all my worldly goods I thee endow," is highly inappropriate in a very vast majority of marriages. Among the poor, and among those who marry with equal fortunes, a very numerous class, the gift and the receipt of worldly goods is either negative or mutual: there is nothing given which is not received; there is but the union of private or the participation of common interests. In the marriage of a widow, or in a marriage without settlements, the man seems to take to himself the worldly goods of the woman; and there is no case in which he alienates to her his own right of property. By a legal arrangement, indeed, the woman, in contemplation of the marriage, either by herself or her guardians, makes over her whole property, with or without reservation, to the man ;

"Eccl. Pol. b. v. s. 73.

and the man, in the act of marriage, admits her to a participation in all his worldly goods, as well those which were originally his own, as those which were formerly hers, but devolved upon him by the previous settlements. If in reference to this case the primary and final clauses be coupled together, without the intervention of the second, and with a right apprehension of the word wed in the sense of covenanting or contracting, a very adequate sense will result I wed and form a covenant with thee with this ring, which is the sign and token that I endow thee and admit thee to the free use, and to a common share, of all my worldly goods. Blackstone thus compares the ancient practice with the modern ritual: "When special endowments were made at the door of the church, the husband, after affiance made and troth plighted, used to declare with what specific lands he meant to endow his wife. When the wife was endowed generally, he seems to have said, With all my lands and tenements I thee endow they all became liable to her dower. endowed her with personalty only he used to say, With all my worldly goods (or, as the Salisbury ritual has it, with all my worldly chattel) I thee endow: which entitled the wife to her thirds, or pars rationabilis, of his personal estate . . . the retaining this last expression in our modern liturgy, if of any meaning at all, can now refer only to the right of maintenance, which she acquires during coverture out of her husband's personalty"."

and then When he

The ancient notion, that the ring was placed on

the fourth finger of the left hand, because a vein proceeded from that finger to the heart?, has been superseded by the more exact discoveries of anatomy. The ring has nevertheless its use and meaning, derived from remote antiquity. It is not improbably the remains of the ancient form of marriage by coemption, in which the arrha, or earnest and pledge, given at the time of the espousals, commonly consisted of a ring, thence called pronubus annulus, sometimes of iron, and without a gem, according to Pliny, but more frequently of gold, according to Tertullian; and Clemens of Alexandria affirms, that it was given, not for ornament only, but to signify the domestic possessions, which were worthy of care and the superintendence of the household. Hence to espouse was sometimes called subarrho, which is the word used by Selden, as the translation of to wed; as is also the word appa6wvoua in the Greek Liturgy and with reference to this ancient custom, it may signify in the present use of the Church, that the woman, in consideration of a certain dowry, contracted for by the man, of which the ring is the earnest and pledge, espouses and makes herself over to him as his wife; and the ring, thus given and received, is called a token and pledge of the vow and covenant betwixt them made.

It is known that the Romans used the ring in contracts, instead of a bill or bond; and its use might be introduced into the marriage contract,

P Isidor. de Div. Off. l. ii. c. 19.

Cl. Alex. Pæd. 1. iii. c. 2. Fr. Hotman de Vet. Rit. Nupt. c. 10. A. Hotman de Sponsalibus, c. 3.

"from the ancient way of expressing esteem for any person by giving him a ring. The ring was originally used for a signet or seal; and the act of delivering a ring to another, denoted that the receiver was considered by the giver as the confidant of his secrets, the partner in his counsels, and sometimes the sharer of his property. The giving of a ring was likewise the ordinary rite or pledge of investing any one with honour or power"." The ring, which was anciently crowned with a seal, may thus denote the seal of the covenant, which is completed in marriage with the admission of the woman to the counsels of her husband, and to a participation of his honour and estate; and by its circular form it may denote the uninterrupted continuity and constancy of affection, with which married persons should be inspired, whose conjugal love should never have an ends. "The ring," saith Hooker, "hath been always used as a special pledge of faith and fidelity; nothing more fit to serve as a token of our purposed endless continuance in that which we ought never to revoke. . . . The cause why the Christians use it, as some of the ancient fathers think, is either to testify mutual love, or rather to serve as a pledge of conjunction in heart and mind agreed upon between them." The public use of the ring is also a convenient distinction between the married and the unmarried woman; a distinction which may be violated, but which no virtuous maiden will venture to assume, and which no modest matron will not scorn to disuse.