Marriage service

“ I am ashamed that not one of the States yet has blotted from its statute books the old law of marriage, which, summed up in the fewest words possible, is in effect "husband and wife are one, and that one the husband." ”

“ 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. ”

“ LEGAL MARRIAGE.—What would any woman give for merely a nominal or legal husband, just to live with and provide for her, but who entertained not one spark of love for her, or whose affections were bestowed upon another? ”

“ As before, marriage is to be encouraged; parental consent is required; the parties must clear themselves "from all other engagements assured by a Certificate from some Credible persons where they have lived;" affix their "intentions of Marriage on the Court, or Meeting-house Door of the County where they Dwell, one Month before the solemnization thereof;" the marriage shall be celebrated "by taking one another as husband and wife, before Sufficient Witnesses;" ”

“ That a husband should provide the means of subsistence is the very Magna Charta of honorable marriage; and nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand so accept it. It is the precise point on which all true husbands feel the most keenly sensitive. They want no other man—no matter what his relationship or friendship—to support their wives. ”

“ CXLII. The essence of Marriage is consent. Ceremonials merely publish the fact; wherefore it should be the law of every land that he who finds a woman worth seducing, and does it, should, by that act alone, he compelled to maintain and acknowledge her as a lawful wife, unless she sees fit to waive her undoubted right to claim and hold him as a husband. ”

“ Two or three unusually sensible philanthropists have already given their attention to this important subject, but any movement of this nature at once assumes too much the aspect of a matrimonial agency to be approved by the class for whose welfare it is destined. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ I can not see the propriety of establishing for women a distinct and separate interest, the consideration of which would, of necessity, withdraw their attention from that sacred duty which nature has, in its wisdom, assigned to their peculiar care. I think the law which unites in one common bond the pecuniary interests of husband and wife should remain. The sacred ordinance of marriage, and the relations growing out of it, should not be disturbed. ”

“ In order at the very outset to fill the wedded life with the blessing and spirit of the Christian life, the church, without reference to the matrimonial law in force, demanded of her members that the very beginning of marriage should be placed under the word of God and be hallowed by its power. ”

“ Adultery, homosexuality and the like are sexual intimacies which the State forbids...but the intimacy of husband and wife is necessarily an essential and accepted feature of the institution of marriage, an institution which the State not only must allow, but which always and in every age it has fostered and protected. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The husband must furnish such support as will maintain the wife in the position in which he has placed her by marriage. If he refuse he must give bonds or go to jail. The wife must contribute to the support of the family if the husband is unable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Noting that you and your husband have consulted about your family problems with your Spiritual Assembly but did not receive any advice, and also discussed your situation with a family counsellor without success, the House of Justice feels it most essential for your husband and you to understand that marriage can be a source of well-being, conveying a sense of security and spiritual happiness. However, it is not something that just happens. For marriage to become a haven of contentment it requires the cooperation of the marriage partners themselves, and the assistance of their families.... ”

“ May each married lady preserve her good man, And young ones get good ones as fast as they can.
It is very remarkable there should be such a plentiful harvest of courtship before marriage, and generally such a famine afterwards. Courtship is a fine bowling-green turf, all galloping round and sweet-hearting, a sunshine holiday in summer time: but when once through matrimony's turnpike, the weather becomes wintry, and some husbands are seized with a cold aguish fit, to which the faculty have given this name— [Shews the girdle of indifference.] ”

“ All the care, discrimination, and judgment urged on young men in selecting wives, I would commend to young ladies, in accepting husbands. If to the former, marriage is an important event, fraught with consequences lasting as life, it is peculiarly so to the latter. It surely is no trivial event for a daughter to leave the home of her childhood, the tender care and watchful guardianship of kind parents, the society of affectionate brothers and sisters, to confide herself, with all her interests and her happiness, to another with whom she has hitherto associated only as a friend. ”

“ European peoples have reached a wiser solution of the problem in prescribing in all cases without exception, as the prerequisite of a valid marriage, the obligatory celebration before an authorized civil officer, leaving the wedded pair to decide, as wholly a private matter, whether a religious ceremony shall be added. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is only the training of the family state according to its true end and aim that is to secure to woman her true position and rights. When the family is instituted by marriage, it is man who is the head and chief magistrate by the force of his physical power and requirement of the chief responsibility; not less is he so according to the Christian law, by which, when differences arise, the husband has the deciding control, and the wife is to obey. "Where love is, there is no law;" ”

“ Our business here in the mountains is to develop a community in which man and woman shall find, through the extension of honorable, pure, just, and virtuous marriage, the legitimate position that Heaven ordained them to occupy as wives and mothers, husbands and fathers, and a response to every requirement of nature, without stepping aside from the path of virtue and honor. ”

“ It was in regard to this dose of democracy, that the government annually assigned marriage portions to twelve young maidens, selected from the great body of the people, of those not sufficiently opulent to secure husbands, or find the adequate means for marriage, without this help. ”

“ More and more the people are growing into a responsiveness to the sacredness of the marriage relation. The husband has increased in knowledge regarding his duty to his wife; the wife sees better her relation to her husband; the parents more clearly perceive what is possible and proper with reference to their children; and, therefore, we can claim thousands of homes which are sources of refinement, of love, and of purest pleasure. ”

“ The marriage institution is the bond of social order, and if treated with due respect, care, and consideration greatly enhances individual happiness and consequently general good. The Spartan law punished those who did not marry, those who married too late, and those who married improperly. ”

“ COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE.—Last of all, parental care in the use of whatever influence can be exerted in the matter of courtship and marriage. Maidens, as well as youths, must, after all, choose for themselves. It is their own lives which they take in their hands as they enter the marriage state, and not their parents ”

“ If, then, we consider the end of the divine institution of marriage, we shall see very clearly that God intended it to be a most fruitful source of individual benefit and of public welfare, Not only, in strict truth, was marriage instituted for the propagation of the human race, but also that the lives of husbands and wives might be made better and happier. ”

“ Society endows the institution of marriage with not only a host of rights and responsibilities, but with a significant respect for the relationship of the married couple. When you say that you are married, others know immediately that you have taken steps to create something special. ”

“ If the woman is a British subject, and the man is a subject or citizen of another country, the marriage officer must be satisfied that the intended marriage would be recognized by the laws of the country where the man to be married belongs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No minister is allowed, as a rule, to solemnize the marriage of any man or woman who has a divorced husband or wife still living. But if the person seeking to be married is the innocent party in the divorce for adultery, that person, whether man or woman, may be married by a minister of the church. ”

“ Although under the system of marriage by188 sale or contract a woman has a voice in the selection of her husband, and although she can count on her kinsmen to protect her against abuse, still, practically, the contract brings the wife under the same condition as a captured wife; she follows her husband to his home, where, as a dependent, he exercises control over her person and her children. ”

“ On the day appointed for the wedding, the young people, who have not yet seen each other, choose each of them a deputy, who exchange hands on their behalf, and thus the marriage rite is accomplished. The day is spent in merriment, and in the evening the bride is veiled, and escorted by a troop of women to the conjugal abode, where she sees her husband for the first time. ”

“ It is necessary and important so to fence round the sanctity of the domestic hearth upon the subject of marriage as to make safe and secure, as far as law can do so, the unrestrained and peculiarly affectionate intercourse which ought to exist for the happiness of families between the closest and nearest relations. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This institution of marriage, framed in our nature, built up in our civilization, studied, contemplated, understood by the jurisprudence of ages, is a solid and real institution, and for its great benefits, and as a necessary part of them, it carries not only the fact of the wife's subordination to the husband, but of the merciful interpretation of that subordination [219] which sensible, instructed men ever accord in practical life, and which the judges pronounce from the bench, and the juries confirm by their verdicts. ”

“ In this country the prevalent sanctity of marriage can be attributed chiefly to the fact that among the rank and file, husbands and wives have generally married each other for love. Perhaps this statement would not apply to the smart set in some commercial cities. ”

“ 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. ”