The arguments for the immediate amendment of the law were, that no more nullities might be incurred; that the rights of property might be secured; and that every man might be assured, that the law, which maintained him in the possession of his inheritance, would also enable him to transmit it to his posterity. The welfare of society demanded, that the principles on which the security of property depended should not be opposed to the rules of morality and religion.

The apologists of the existing system admitted the importance of the subject, and the occasional evils of the present law, but the reverence due to the great name of its author often checked the desire of seeing it reformed. Various Bills had indeed proceeded from the Commons, but, notwithstanding the corrections and assiduous attention which they had received, they had all failed of their Lordships' approbation: nor would it secure the success of the present Bill to point out the evils which it was intended to remove, without shewing that the proposed alterations would not be more mischievous. The long period over which the existing law had operated, and the prodigious interests which it involved, required that a full view should be taken of all the difficulties of the question. It was clearly within the competence of a civil jurisdiction to consider the age and circumstances, and to prescribe the forms, of marriage, and to exercise a controlling authority over the whole subject. Dangerous consequences might arise, and it might be difficult to distinguish between marriage and concubinage, if

Lords Stowell and Eldon.

private judgment were allowed to fix the terms which should constitute marriage. For its more security, marriage before the Reformation had been considered a personal sacrament, in which the intervention of no third person was necessary: and even now in Scotland marriage was dependent on nothing but the declared will of the parties. At the Reformation a material change took place, and many attempts originating in the Upper House, and no doubt with royal sanction, were afterwards made to give a more definite character to this institution. The Act of George II. had been demanded by the gross abuse of former laws, under which every legal restraint had been eluded, and youths of the best families had been inveigled into the most unhappy connexions. A prompt and efficacious remedy was required, and if the means of prevention had been clear, the present evils could not have arisen. The Bill framed by Lord Hardwicke became the law of the land, and had continued in operation ever since. It was ignorantly supposed, that under this Act marriages of minors without consent were good in themselves, but voidable in the ecclesiastical courts: but, in truth, they were absolutely null, and, whatever ceremonies might be observed, they signified nothing, and imposed no obligation; the parties might again be married to other persons; their infidelity to each other did not amount to adultery; the woman had not acquired, and therefore could not forfeit, the character of a wife; the issue was necessarily illegitimate; and, however the parties might live in full confidence of their marriage, it was in law a perfect nullity; the parties had made a law for themselves, and they

must abide the result. The only question therefore was, how far it might be convenient to leave these contracts for a certain interval to be decided by others. But perhaps there could not be a worse evil than the voidability of marriage. At present the law was fixed and definite: the marriage without consent was intrinsically and irremediably null. It was known that these marriages were usually contracted not against, but without, consent: they might be, and they often were, industriously concealed; and if they were made voidable only, and dependent on the sentence of a court, there would be no end of the perplexity and confusion. It had been said, that the parties might be betrayed into error, through ignorance and misapprehension of the law, with which they were willing to comply, and that time should be allowed for the supply of the requisite forms. If this principle should be admitted, the time thus allowed should be scrupulously restricted to the period absolutely necessary for the purpose which was contemplated. It was necessary that the parties should know with the least delay, whether they were or were not married. Parents should not be allowed to deliberate, whether they should invalidate or confirm the marriages of their children; they should not have the power of suppressing their resentment for a time, and afterwards, in the exercise of a cruel right, of annulling the marriage, after the birth of a numerous progeny, whom their act would render illegitimate. Again; the parent might die during the minority, and this singular anomaly would result. Of the children of two fathers, both withholding their consent from their marriages, the one

by the death of his father would be lawfully married; the other, whose father survived, would not be married at all. The evils of a voidable marriage were increased in proportion to the length of its duration, and the period allowed for avoiding it. On the rights of third persons it was material to observe, that there were vested interests besides those of which the party was in possession, and that they might be the more valuable of the two. Thus an elder brother, illegally married, possessing an entailed estate, might have a younger brother legally married: the children of the latter would have a vested interest in the estate, more valuable than their father. The session was however drawing to a close, and the measure might be deferred to another year, when it might originate in the upper House, and have the benefit of all the learning which peculiarly belonged to the subject.

Nothing could be stronger than this argument against voidability, which arose on the clause for rendering the marriages of minors without consent null, at the suit of the parents during the minority: and the force of the argument was justly appreciated by the rejection of the clause. The argument in favour of nullity of marriage failed at the same time. to produce conviction, and the practice of nullity was for the future effectually restrained. Thus the exertions of all who laboured for the amendment of the law were more than fulfilled: the validity of all marriages celebrated in the face of the Church was reestablished; the law of marriage was rendered definite and distinct; the vow of marriage, according to its primitive institution, was again irrevocable.

The intrinsic force of the argument, which produced these results, could not have been more clearly proved, than by the decision of the House, which would not have lightly disregarded the opinions and suggestions of the Lords Stowell and Eldon.

The new Bill was embarrassed with exceptionable forms, and excited so much popular clamour, as to call for immediate revision: and in the following session a committee of the Lords was appointed, to consider the improvements which were required. In this committee, notwithstanding the force of the argument against the evils of voidability compared with nullity, a clause of voidability was proposed, and it was carried by a majority of seven to four, in the absence, as was alleged, of some of the members, who would not have concurred in the proposition. It will be proper to take the substance of the debate, when this extraordinary clause was moved in the committee of the House.

It was argued against the clause of voidability, that marriage was a religious contract instituted by God; and that the proposed clause was contrary to the plain rules of Scripture, that a man should leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and they twain should be one flesh; that what God had joined together man should not put asunder; and that a man should not put away his wife except for the cause of fornication. These were authorities which should govern the law of man, and with which the present form of Solemnization of Matrimony was in just conformity. It was a mockery, to allow the dissolution of a marriage, solemnized with all the sanctities of religion, in which the parties