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Marriage and Divorce Laws of the World

CHAPTER I.

Introduction.

Marriage is the oldest and most universal of all human institutions. According to the Chinese Annals in the beginning of society men differed in nothing from other animals in their way of life. They wandered up and down the forests and plains free from the restraint of community laws or morality, and holding their women in common. Children generally knew their mothers, but rarely their fathers.

We are told that the Emperor Fou-hi changed all this by inventing marriage. The Egyptians credit Menes with the same invention, while the Greeks give the honour to Kekrops.

In the Sanscrit literature we find no definite account of the institution of marriage, but the Indian poem, “Mahabharata,” relates that until the Prince Swetapetu issued an edict requiring fidelity between husband and wife the Indian women roved about at their pleasure, and if in their youthful innocence they went astray from their husbands they were not considered as guilty of any wrong.

The Bible story of the institution of marriage is contained in the Second Chapter of Genesis, 18th to the 25th verse. It is not within the purpose of this treatise to argue for or against the acceptance of the Bible narrative, so we call attention without comment to the extreme simplicity of the wedding ritual as stated in the 22d verse:

“And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and he brought her unto the man.”

Among primitive men marriage was concluded without civil or religious ceremony. Even in modern Japan a wedding ritual is considered all but superfluous.

The principal marriage ceremonies have been derived from heathen customs; they were: the arrhae, or espousal gifts, an earnest or pledge that marriage would be concluded; and the ring betokening fidelity.

Among the ancient Hebrews marriage was not a religious ordinance or contract, and neither in the Old Testament nor in the Talmud is it treated as such.

As with the Mohammedans it was simply a civil contract.

Under the old Roman law there were three modes of marriage: 1. Confarreatio, which consisted of a religious ceremony before ten witnesses, in which an ox was sacrificed and a wheaten cake was broken by a priest and divided between the parties.

2. Coemptio in manum, which was a conveyance or fictitious sale of the woman to the man.

3. Usus, the acquisition of a wife by prescription through her cohabitation with the husband for one year without being absent from his house three consecutive nights.

But a true Roman marriage could be concluded simply by the interchange of consent.

There was an easy morality of the olden times which according to present standards was akin to savagery. The Greeks even in the golden age of Pericles held the marriage relation in very little sanctity. It was reputable for men to loan their wives to their friends, and divorce was easy and frequent. Hellenic literature attempted to make poetry of vice and marital infidelity, and adultery was the chief pastime of the gods and goddesses.

The Romans had more of the moral and religious in their character than the Greeks, but still we read of Cato the younger loaning his wife Marcia to Hortensius and taking her back after the orator’s death.

In the Second Chapter of the Gospel according to St. John we find that Jesus was a guest at a marriage in Cana of Galilee. His attendance at the wedding feast is not notable for His having on this occasion given the marriage contract the character of a sacrament, for nothing in the record even hints at this. The account is principally noteworthy as the history of His first miracle, that of turning water into wine.

It was from the Fifth Chapter of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians that the dogma that marriage is a sacrament was gradually evolved. In this chapter the Apostle points out the particular duties of the marriage status, and exhorts wives to obey their husbands, and husbands to love their wives. “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.”

However, the early Christian Church did not treat marriage as a sacrament, although its celebration was usually the occasion of prayers and exhortations.

It was not until the year 1563, by an edict of the Council of Trent, that the oldest branch of the Christian Church, namely, that governed by the See of Rome, required the celebration of marriage to be an essentially religious ceremony.

The general marriage law of the European continent has been derived and developed from the edicts of the Roman emperors and the decrees of the Christian Church. This historical evolution is strikingly apparent when we read the definition of marriage as given in the Institutes of Justinian: Nuptiae autem, sive matrimonium est veri et mulieris conjunctio, individuam vitae consuetudinem continens. Marriage is the union of a man and a woman, including an inseparable association of their lives.

There are as many definitions of marriage as there are views concerning it, but none of them improve very much upon that given in the Institutes.

It is also worth noting that the impediments to lawful marriage were very nearly the same under the Roman Empire as they are to-day in most civilized countries. The 18th Chapter of the Book of Leviticus appears to have set the standard. 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. The first polygamist on the same authority was Lamech, who was of the sixth generation after Adam, for he “took unto him two wives.” Reading in the First Book of Kings, we are informed that King Solomon had “seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines.” A round thousand. However, polygamy, or the marriage of a man to more than one wife at the same time, was not the rule even among the ancient Hebrews. Such a trial