HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT. The law of mar riage in all Christian countries is derived from the canon law, i.e. the law established by the Christian Church in the Middle Ages. The canon law drew many of its rules regarding marriage from the Roman civil law, and it Was influenced, to some extent, by Teutonic ideas; hut in many respects its marriage law was novel. In nearly all Christian countries the canonical rules have been seriously modified during the last four hundred years. The changes which began with the Protestant Reformation were at first worked out by the Protestant churches and embodied in Protestant ecclesias tical law: but a tendency to regulate marriage by civil legislation appeared in the sixteenth century, and at the present day, even in those countries which have adhered most closely to the rules of the canon law, marriage is governed by the ordinary civil law.
RomAx CIVIL LAW. .Alarriatge maid be estab lished only between Roman citizens, or between Romans and such foreigners as had by treaty the right of intermarrying with Romans (ins connubii). Originally. no intermarriage was pos sible between the gentiles or patricians and the plebeians: and after intermarriage between the orders had been legalized (n.c. 445), gentiles continued to marry, in most eases, within their own order, and often within their own yeas. The marriage of near blood-relations, however, was forbidden; originally, those related in the sixth degree (e.g. children of first cousins) were not allowed to intermarry. ht the third century B.C. marriage was permitted between persons re lated im the fourth degree (e.g. first cousins). The legislation of the Empire varied: at one time (..n. 49) a man was allowed to marry his brother':: daughter. but in the fourth century this was made a capital offense, and in the fifth cen tury the marriage of first cousins was again for a time prohibited. The relations established by adop tion (q.v.) were treated as equivalent to rela tions of blood-kinship. Affinity was a bar in the direct line only, until the end of the third century, when marriage with a sister-in-law (the brother's widow or his divorced wife, and the de ceased or divorced wife's sister) was prohibited. Justinian. under the intlnetwe of the Christian Church. forbade marriage between godparents and godeltildnm en the ground that baptism estab lished a spiritual kinship. Under the same in
'Theme the Theodosian Code had already pro hibited inarriage between C'hristians and ;Jews.
In the older civil law there were three modes of establishing marital power (moans). For the patricians there was a religious ceremony. con farrcatio; for the plebeians there w•as fictitious purchase, coi'mptio, and also prescription. mama. The acquisition of marital power by prescription implied that the mall and the woman were living together withmit any preceding eanfarrealia or coiMptio; and it is I:rob:tide that such a union was not originally regarded as of marriage until the man had acquired marital power: but at an early period this informal onion was treated as marriage. even though the prescription was annually interrupted and never became enmplete. This marriage row:rasa. i.e. in• agreement, was usually accompanied by religious observances, such as the taking of auspices, by a banquet, and by the ceremonial taking of the wife to the hushand's house, but none of these things was necessary : co»scns as, nowt CO/te b it us, Tacit ouptins. The C011sensnal marriage supplanted all other forms except the confarreatio, which was occasionally used in some of the old families until the empire became Christian. The consensual marriage was a 'free marriage' in two senses: it gave the husband no power over the person or property of his wife, and it was dissoluble at the will of either party. See DIVORCE.
Alarriage could be established when both par ties had reached the age of puberty, which was fixed at the completed fourteenth year for males, at the completed twelfth for females. Betrothal (q.v.), sponsalia, could take place at any time after the completed seventh year. When the parties. or either of them, were under pater nal authority, no betrothal or marriage was valid without the paternal authorization.
The remarriage of widows was regarded in the older Roman ethics as improper, but it w•4as never legally prohibited. In the later Imperial , law it was prohibited for tea months, unless i thin that period a child had been born. In the later Imperial law, certain property disadvan tages were attached to second marriages, both as regarded husbands and wives; but the object was not to penalize second marriages. but to secure the interests of the children of the previous marriages.