Arranged marriage

“ Husband and Wife.—A husband is not guardian over his wife any further than respects the rights of marriage, nor does the provision for her rest upon him any further than with respect to food, clothing and lodging.
A husband must reside equally with each of his wives, unless one wife bestow her right upon another wife. ”

“ Obligations of Marriage.—The parties to a marriage are bound to mutual fidelity, protection and assistance.
The husband owes protection to his wife and a wife obedience to her husband.
A wife is obliged to live with her husband at whatever residence he may judge to be proper. The husband is obliged to receive his wife and to furnish her with the necessaries of life, according to his ability and social condition.
A husband and wife contract together by the fact of marriage itself to nourish, educate and properly care for their children. ”

“ We comforted ourselves with the belief that respect for the sanctity of marriage stood high in this country until the Divorce Court was established. We cannot speak quite as complacently now; but marriage is still held among us to be honourable. How is it that marriage in some other countries is less respected? Do we not know that the facilities for divorce in some of those countries depreciate the estimation in which the marriage vow is held? ”

“ But the marriage law dates from a time when women had none of these things. The married woman, thus, under this law, now occupies a position in sharp contrast to the independence of the unmarried, which has been acquired since that time. ”

“ Of all the revolutionary suggestions for improving the present marriage system, the most sensible and feasible seems to me marriage ‘on approval’—in other words, a ‘preliminary canter.’ The procedure would be somewhat as follows: a couple on deciding to marry would go through a legal form of contract, agreeing to take each other as husband and wife for a limited term of years—say three. ”

“ If a divorce took place the husband was required to hand over to the wife all the property she had brought with her as dowry, and she then either returned to her father's home or set up an independent establishment of her own." The divorced woman might marry again if she chose. "Marriage was partly a religious and partly a civil function. The contracting parties frequently invoked the gods, and signed the contract in the presence of the priest. ”

“ The wife first married usually enjoys the highest rank: [246] therefore parents often object to giving a daughter in marriage to a man who has already another wife; and it frequently happens that the woman who is sought in marriage objects to such a union. The law provides in some measure against the discomforts arising from polygamy, by giving to each wife a claim to a distinct lodging, affording conveniences for sleeping, cooking, etc. ”

“ Hist., I, 53 ff.
[938] Earle, "Among Friends," New Eng. Mag., Sept., 1898, 20. "Courtship and marriage were closely hedged around. Friends were enjoined against proposing marriage without the consent of the meeting, against marrying any but a Friend, against 'keeping unreasonable company' with any woman not a Friend; against going to weddings of any who marry out of meeting; against being 'married by a priest.' They were enjoined also 'to be clear of one before being concerned with another,' in an engagement of marriage. Widows and widowers were reminded not to marry again too swiftly ”

“ To decree the necessary measures to prevent the husband, who may have given cause for divorce, or against whom the petition for nullity of the marriage has been instituted, from interfering with the wife in the administration of her separate property.
Husband and Wife.—The spouses are under mutual obligation to live together, to be faithful to, [Pg 116] and help each other. The husband is bound to protect his wife and the wife to obey her husband.
The wife is required to follow her husband wherever he may establish his residence. ”

“ The term "pair marriage" is needed as a technical term for the form of marriage which is as exclusive and permanent for the man as for the woman, which one enters on the same plane of free agreement as the other, and in which all the rights and duties are mutual. ”

“ None but some approved minister or justice of the peace within this Province, or some chief officer, where such are not, shall be allowed to marry or admit of any to join in marriage, in their presence ”

“ Any marriage to be legally binding had to be accompanied by a duly executed and attested marriage-contract, and without this necessary preliminary a woman was not regarded as a wife in the legal sense. ”

“ The old manus-marriage certainly supposes great confidence of the wife and her parents in the fidelity of the husband, while the marriage law of the time of the emperors relating to estates never lost sight of the possibility of divorce. ”

“ A study of the marriage laws of the world has also brought the happy conviction that the wholesome view of marriage as the union of one man and one woman for life, to the exclusion of all others, is the one triumphant fact of human history which can never lose its prestige. ”

“ It was most unfortunate for civilization that the Christian conception of the nature of marriage should have sprung from asceticism, and that the verbal subtlety of the schoolmen should have produced the cardinal definitions upon which the validity of marriage contracts, and therefore the practical administration of matrimonial law, were made to depend. ”

“ And it was a fact that in the higher ranks of society,—the only ones with which we are concerned,—a marriage was nothing but a contract made for political and economical reasons. The baron desired to enlarge his estate, obtain a dowry, or marry into an influential family; no one dreamed of consulting the future bride, whom marriage alone could bring into contact with people outside her own family. ”

“ As there should be no partial divorce, which leaves the parties in the condition aptly described by an eminent jurist as 'a wife without a husband and a husband without a wife,' so, as a matter of public expediency, and in the interest of public morals, whenever and however the marriage is dissolved, both parties should be left free to remarry. ”

“ The man has been allowed to take unto himself as many wives as he could support without asking the consent of former wives—a practice which seems strange to those who have been brought up to regard the marriage vows as mutually binding and to consider man and woman as standing upon an equal plane when entering upon the relation of husband and wife. ”

“ The agreement of the lovers and a notice concerning their union must suffice for the forming of marriage. The priest does not make marriage, the law does not make marriage, the parents do not make marriage, the magistrate does not make marriage, but love and the agreement of the lovers make it. Let marriage, therefore, be made dependent on nothing save the conditions for its existence. ”

“ Amongst other discourses one day I told him, I was much affected with the relation I had from some of the company of their custom in holding the feast of the family, for that, methought, I had never heard of a solemnity wherein Nature did so much preside. And because propagation of families proceedeth from the nuptial copulation, I desired to know of him what laws and customs they had concerning marriage, and whether they kept marriage well, and whether they were tied to one wife? ”

“ If marriage is not about one man and one woman for the purpose of a relationship of which to have children and continue society, if it is about two women and two men or two women and three men, why not whatever arrangement? ”

“ Marriage.—In this newly admitted State marriage is treated as a purely civil contract.
A male must be at least eighteen and a female at least fourteen years of age to lawfully contract marriage.
The consent of the parents is required in the case of males under 21 and females under 18.
Consanguinity and Affinity.—All marriages between parents and children, including grandparents and grandchildren of every degree; between brothers and sisters of the half as well as the whole blood; between uncles and nieces, aunts and nephews; and between first cousins are declared to be incestuous and void. ”

“ The question as to whether or not a marriage is ceremonially complete depends largely upon what ceremonies are customary among the parties concerned.
Consummation is not necessary to complete a marriage. In thousands of cases girls under ten years of age have been married to males older than themselves who have died before their wives were old enough for the consummation of marriage. ”

“ In the Indian Archipelago they are by no means rare; the husband for instance, in conformity with an agreement with his parents-in-law, declares immediately after the marriage ceremony, that his wife may regard herself as divorced by him if he marries a second, or gives her no house of her own to live in, etc. Here again, as might be expected, the great majority of bridegrooms require the assistance of the official who concludes the marriage contract for the proper expression of the formula; he dictates the words one after another to the bridegroom. ”

“ When she has thus obtained a wife for her husband, she carries her home, puts her to bed with her husband, where, having left her, she feasts with the bride's relations. There the children of the first marriage are produced, and the men of the bride's family put each their hands upon these children's heads, and afterwards take the oath in the usual manner, to live and die with them as their own offspring. ”

“ On the other hand, the compulsory marriage laws of to-day, as well in relation to divorce as to the guardianship given the man, have become obstacles to the higher development of the common life of man and woman. ”

“ There are three principal forms of marriage, namely, monogamy, polygamy and polyandry. Monogamy, or the condition of one man being married to but one woman at a time, appears to be not only the best but the most ancient and universal type. It was, according to the Bible, good enough for the first husband, Adam, for his only wife was Eve. ”

“ Within these degrees the laws of the Church prohibit marriage; as also between those who are connected by affinity from lawful marriage within the same degrees.
Q. 68. What do you mean by affinity from lawful marriage?
A. The Scripture declares that husband and wife " are no longer two, but one flesh," Mat. xix. 5 ; consequently the blood relations of the one become equally connected with the other; and this connection which the husband contracts with the blood relations of his wife, and which the wife contracts with those of her husband, is called affinity. ”

“ But there are other ways of dissolving a marriage; and under some conditions the woman has a chance. Exchange of wives, when [230] both are childless, is "permitted only after the death of their parents, and, of course, with the consent of the chiefs." A couple without children may separate by mutual consent; and "when a woman is treated with cruelty by her husband, she may put herself under the protection of another man, with the intention of becoming his wife. ”

“ The same is equally true, if the conneclion with the stranger were to be preceded by the forms of marriage. Any connection with another woman is leaving his wife, and ceasing to cleave to her, in the very point which the law respects. ”

“ A man having married a second wife to please himself, married a third to please his first. "She was getting old, she said, and wanted a younger woman to help her about the house."
A couple about to be married made an agreement between themselves that the husband should not marry again unless it was one of the relatives of the first wife. The ladies selected have refused, and the husband remains true to his promise.
The belle of the settlement, a Gentile, refused monogamist offers of marriage, and married a Mormon who had two wives already. ”

“ You could pay it—this tribute to our so-called Civilization—by obtaining your divorce and contracting, according to the law of the land, to live together as it permits you. A marriage in a registry office counts as no marriage to a Catholic ”

“ The matrimonial conventions of the parties must be made before marriage; but the husband, during marriage, may convey to the wife property to replace that which may have been alienated by him, as was done in this case. ”

“ Since the days of King Henry, divorce has remained an indulgence sacred to the aristocracy of England. The poorer classes have no form of divorce amongst them. Marriage is for them,—as I have said,—practically, a sacrament.
The rich man makes a new marriage, having divorced his wife in the House of Lords: his new marriage is legal; his children are legitimate ”

“ The very fact that any plan was devised to afford a legal and decent mode of entering into the marriage contract, certainly implies that the moral sense of the community revolted at general concubinage. ”

“ A woman with one husband can fulfil this command, with greater facilities, than if she had a plurality; indeed, this would, in all probability, frustrate the great design of marriage, and prevent her from raising up a family. ”

“ None of these reforms, however, need in any way debar the formation of voluntary marriage contracts. Such contracts are, indeed, distinctly advisable, for the voluntary resolve of two people to remain faithful to one another, and to build up a permanent home for their children, is at once the best, truest, and most natural foundation of marriage. ”

“ First we find the present "normal condition of individual marriage with the occasional existence of marital relations between the individual wife and other men of the same group as that to which her husband belongs, and the occasional existence also of still wider marital relations;" ”

“ No person can contract a new marriage who has a spouse by an existing marriage still living.
Consanguinity and Affinity.—Marriage is forbidden between all ascendants and descendants ad infinitum and between persons related to each other by blood or marriage within the third degree, according to the method of computation of the civil law. According to this reckoning a person cannot marry a relative nearer than his or her own first cousin. ”