ABBREVIATIONS EXPLAINED. Cla. & F., Clarke & Fennelly's Curt., Curties' Reports. | Mac., Macqueen's Reports. the Court for Divorce and CHAPTER I. OF MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE GENERALLY. 1. Marriage a civil contract, apart from Scriptural declarations. 2. Solemnity of the marriage vows. 3. Marriage naturally indissoluble in certain cases. 4. Cases in which the natural law admits of Divorce. 5. Natural causes of irreconcileable differences between married couples. 6. Classification of married persons. 7. Dissolution by voluntary consent should be allowed. 8. Scriptural obligations in reference to Divorce. 9. The civil law-adultery the foundation of relief. 10. Early exercise by Parliament of the power of Divorce. 14. Divorces in France-the Roman Catholic doctrines. 15. Voluntary separations intended to be provided for by the new law. 16. Marriage the basis of proceedings for Divorce, 17. The fact must be tried with reference to the laws where the marriage took place. 18. The ancient law of marriage in Ireland. 19. The existing law of marriage in Ireland. 20. The law of marriage in England. 21. The Scotch law-marriage by mere consent. 22. Gretna Green marriages. 23. The intention must be to marry, or a marriage will not be constituted. 24. Marriage "by habit and repute.” 1. OWING to some tradition of the Divine appointment of marriage in our first parents, or merely from a design to impress the obligation of the marriage contract with a solemnity suited to its importance, the marriage rite, in almost all countries in the world, has B been made a religious ceremony; although, of its own nature, and abstracted from the rules and declarations which Jewish and Christian Scripture deliver concerning it, marriage is a civil contract, and nothing more. 2. The ceremony is usually grave, solemn, and impressive. The husband promises on his part, "to love, comfort, honor, and keep his wife;" the wife, on hers, to "obey, serve, love, honor, and keep her husband," in every variety of wealth, fortune, and condition; and both stipulate "to forsake all others, and keep only to one another so long as they both live." The parties, by this vow, solemnly engage their personal fidelity, expressly and specifically: they engage likewise to consult and promote each other's happiness.2 3. And by the law of Nature, marriage is, in all well-constituted minds, not only instituted, but made indissoluble, except by death: even the lower animals that live in pairs exemplify permanent connexion. With regard to man, where the organs of domestic affection bear a just proportion to each other, and where the moral and intellectual organs are favorably developed and cultivated, there is not only no desire, on either side, to bring the marriage tie to an end, but the utmost repugnance to do so. The deep despondency which changes into one unbroken expression of grief and desolation-the whole aspect of even the most determined and energetic men, when they lose by death the cherished partners of their lives; and that breaking down of spirit-profoundly felt, although meekly and resignedly borne, which the widow indicates when her "stay and delight" is removed from her for ever,— proclaim in language too touching and too forcible to be misunderstood, that, where the marriage tie is Payley's Philosophy, B. 3, p. 3, c. 8, 2 The wife, moreover, promises obedienee to her husband., Nature may have left the sexes of the human species nearly equal in their faculties, and perfectly so in their rights; but to guard against those competitions which equality or a contested superiority, is almost sure to produce, the Christian Scriptures enjoin upon the wife, in terms peremptory and absolute, that obedience which she here promises. formed according to nature's laws, no civil enactments are needed to render it indissoluble during life. It is clear, then, that life endurance is stamped upon it by the Creator, when He renders its continuance so sweet, and its bursting asunder so painful. It is only where the minds of both or one of the parties are ill constituted, or where the union is otherwise unfortunate, that any desire for separation exists. 4. "The Law of Nature," says Paley, "admits of divorce in favor of the injured party in cases of adultery, of obstinate desertion, of attempts upon life, of outrageous cruelty, of incurable madness, and, perhaps, of personal imbecility, but," he proceeds, " by no means indulges the same privileges to mere dislike, to opposition of humours and inclination to contrariety of taste and temper, to complaints of coldness, neglect, severity, peevishness or jealousy: not that these reasons are trivial, but because such objections may always be alleged, and are impossible by testimony to be ascertained so as to allow implicit credit to them, and to dissolve marriage whenever either party thought fit to pretend them, would lead, in its effects, to all the licentiousness of arbitary divorces. If," says he, "a married pair, in actual irreconcilable discord, complain that their happiness would be better consulted by permitting them to determine a connexion which has become odious to both; it may be told them, that the same permission as a general rule would produce libertinism, desertion, and misery among thousands who are now virtuous, quiet, and happy in their condition; and it ought to satisfy them to reflect that when their happiness is sacrificed to the operation of an unrelenting rule, it is sacrificed to the happiness of the community." 5. It has been properly observed, that "if there be truth in phrenology, this argument of Paley's is a grand fallacy." "Actual and irreconciliable discord" arises only from want of harmony in the natural dispositions of the parties connected with differences in their cerebral organizations: and agreement arises solely from the existence of such harmony. The natures of the parties in the one case differ irreconcilably: But to maintain |