EARLY GERM AN LAW. The usual form of mar riage among the Scandinavians, the Germans proper, and the Anglo-Saxons was wife-purchase. The girl was bought from her father or guardian, and delivered by the father or guardian to the buyer. Abduction of a girl without payment seems to have been regarded as a mode of mar riage, hut the husband did not obtain marital authority ( a »d i u ) until he had paid the cus tomary compensation to the father or guardian. In the earliest written laws the price paid is beginning to be regarded as something that be longs to the woman, not to the father or guard ian; it is dos or dower in the later English sense —i.e. a provision for widowhood—and instead of paying it over to the father or guardian, the bridegroom gives security for its payment on his death to his widow. In the earliest written laws also the purchase marriage consists of two sepa rate transactions: (1) the agreement between the bridegroom and the bride's father or guard ian, in which each formally binds himself to perform his part of the contract, and (2) the delivery of the bride, together with the payment of the price or the giving of security for its payment to the widow. As the formal contract of the old German law• consisted in the giving of symbolic pledges, wadia, the first of these trans actions was a wadia io ( Anglo-Saxon, bewed dung), while the second was a 'giving' (Anglo Saxon. ail' ta). The wadiat io was inure than a betrothal, it was an inchoate marriage. lt pro duced some of the legal results of marriage, while other results attached to the giving, and others again to cohabitation. In the later develop ment of the German law• the wadiptio was de scribed as Verlobnny or promising, and consisted in the exchange of promises between bridegroom and bride. and the giving became the Tra on n g or entrusting. Verlobn n g. however, in the Ger man view, was always something more than a Roman betrothal, and the German view was not without influence upon the development of the canon law.
lit/DIAN CANON LAW. The Roman Catholic Church considers marriage as a sacrament which conveys divine grace to the recipients for the purpose of enabling them to perform well the duties of the conjugal state. This aspect has nothing to do with the validity of the marriage as a civil contract; nor does the Church by this teaching deny that valid marriages are contrasted outside its communion. lInt, considered as a sacrament of the Catholic Church, it cannot be received by an unbaptized person, o• properly by any one who is in a state of mortal sin. By the general view of theologians, since the consent of the parties is the essential part of the sacrament, they are themselves held to be the 'ministers' of it: the priest simply adds the Church's benediction. Since marriage was con sidered a sacrament, it was early asserted that as such its regulation fell within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Church. The claim was recog nized; and in the exercise of its jurisdiction the Church developed a uniform law of marriage for all Western Christendom. It did not claim to regulate the property relations of husband and wife, but it regulated the establishment and de termined the validity of marriages. The prin
cipal inference which the Church drew from the sacramental theory was that marriage was indis soluble. The Church courts could declare that an existing union was not a valid marriage, i.e. they could declare a marriage null, on account of circumstances antecedent to or simultaneous with its establishment: and they could grant a separa tion from bed and board on account of circum stances that had arisen since the marriage: but they could not dissolve a marriage validly estab lished by reason of ally occurrences subsequent to its establishment. See DIVORCE.
There were numerous grounds on which a marriage could he set aside or annulled, called dividing or destructive impediments (impedi menta diri men tia 1, such as a previous marriage, a previous vow of celibacy, a difference of re ligion, impotence, etc. To the dividing impedi ments belonged also relationship within the for bidden degrees. The wide range of this impedi ment was perhaps the most peculiar feature of the canon law. The Church not only forbade marriage by reason of consanguinity and the legal affinity established by marriage; it attached the same result to the spiritual relationship estab lished by participation in the sacraments of bap tism and of confirmation, and to the illegitimate affinity established by unlawful coneubit us ; and it carried prohibitions based on affinity to the same degree as those based on blood-kinship. Before 1215 the impediments of consanguinity and affinity exten led to the seventh degree (which, by civil computation, might he the four teenth degree. for in tracing collateral relation ship the canoeists reckoned only up to the com mon ancestor and not down again) : and mar riage was forbidden not only with allines, but with their alli»es ( a ff initas m.en ndi tert ii gra dug) : but at the fourth Lateran Council In nocent HI. abolished the latter rule, and limited the prohibition based on consanguinity and affin ity to the fourth degree (e.g. third cousins). From all these impediments of relationship, except those between ascendants and descendants and brother and sister, dispensation might be granted, as also from a vow of celibacy, a all ference of religion, and lack of age. Lack of age, moreover, and lack of consent, were curable defects. In most eases, therefore, these dividing impediments did not render the marriages void, but only voidable. The hardships logically re sulting from the annulment of marriage were lessened by the doctrine of the 'imitative mar riage.' NN here one of the parties to the invalid marriage was unaware of the impediment. that party. and also any children born of the union, were entitled to all the rights which would have been theirs if the marriage had lieen valid. In particUlar, the children were legitimate. This doctrine, however. reached over into 0 field Which. even in the fiddle Ages, was regarded as secular. The Church could say what was and what was not a marriage, but it could not regu late all the civil results of marriage, nor all the civil results of its annulment. See DrvoRcE.