plants themselves, it is now known, are benefited by the pollen of one fiower being conveyed to another, and it is the office of insects, such as bees and files, to medi- ate in this keeping up the "breeds" of the vegetable kingdom, (c) Besides enacting laws against the mar- riage of blood-relations, states have sometimes prohib- ited men from connecting themselves with women who sustain towards them the closest degrees of affinity. Some Protestant countries make it unlawfid to marry a wife's sister. There are no valid arguments against such unions from Scripture, but rather, when it is saifl (Lev. xviii, 18) that a man shall not have two sisters together as his wives, the fair inference is that Je^vish law allowed marriage to one of them after the death of the other and preceding wife. IMarriage to a brother's widow or deceased husband's brother is more doubtful. Yet in the canonical law, where such unions are forbid- den, the pope can probably give a dispensation from the rule. Such was the case of Henry VIII of England, and a canon of the Council of Trent (sess. xxiv,Z>e sacr.ma- trim. can. iii) ordains that if any one shall say that the Church cannot give a dispensation in the case of some of the prohibitions in Leviticus, ch. xviii, " anathema sit" — evidently referring to that very case which blew up such a flame in England.
On the whole, there are no certi fines within which the moral feeling and the law — which in this case is more or less controlled by such feeling — can be confined. We have a parallel to this in the definitions of certain rights, where the law has to make the positive and ex- act metes and bounds. Thus there is a time in the life of a child when he ought to acipiire a jural capacity, and so become legally independent of his father; but whether this shall be reached at the age of eighteen or twenty-one, or shall be reached by degrees or all at once, the reason of a state must determine. So the moral feeling of a state must determine within what limits of consanguinity or of affinity parties may con- tract marriage ; and if tha Church has another prevail- ing sentiment, it must have its own rules prohibiting for its members what the state does not prohibit.
We will just mention, with little or no remark, sev- eral other hinderances which either State or Church law have put in the waj"- of v/edlock. Such are fraudu- lent representations of either party, which were leading causes of the contract of marriage ; mistakes affecting the identity of the person ; and previous crime of one party unknown to the other, especially previous adul- tery ; to which is to be added difference of religious confessions, especially when so great as that between a Jew and a Christian, or a Protestant and a Roman Catholic. Indeed, in the case of mixed marriages (see below), there is still much conflict between the leg- islation of Church and State. Civil law in countries where slavery was allowed made all marriage unions between freemen and slaves unlawful. \\\ some coun- tries marriage between a noble and an ordinaiy citizen or peasant has been either forbidden or attended with civil disabilities, such as degradation of rank to the offspring. Here it may not be out of place to allude also to the regulations of the Romish Church in the case of persons who may have taken the vow of celibacy. If any such ]inrty have not yet entered the convent, pope Boniface Vni decided that marriage may be contracted; after having once entered the convent, tlie contract becomes illegal. Among Protestants, however, the taking of the vow of celibacj' remains a question of conscience only. Another objection to marriage in the Roman Catholic Church is spiritual relationship, cognatio sjiiritualis, which prevents marriage between persons whi> have held one another at the baptismal font. In the 13tli century this was made to include both the infant bap- tized and the children of the sponsors, as well as the sponsors themselves ; but it has since been restricted. The Continental Reformers as early as the Smalcald ar- ticles declared against this impediment of the sponsors. In the Greek Church, as we have seen above, Godparent-
M.\RRIAGE
rP2
MARRIAGE
arjr: and adoption constitute impediments up to the se^'- cnth degree.
■1. In order to preserve the purity and peace of mar- ried hfc, the State has often passed rides making all sexual union of either the husband or the %\-ife with a tldrd party penal, and the Church will of course visit such offences of its members with severe discipline. Some 'States in their laws have punished the concubiu- a;::e or illicit intercourse of a husband with an immar- ried woman less severely than similar offences of a wife, or. it may be, has let them go unpunished. According to Roman law, adultery was a crime committed only with a married woman : but a wife, displeased with her husband's morals, could without difficulty obtain a di- vorce. Under English law adultery has not been treat- ed as a public crime, the dealing with it being left to the ecclesiastical law, and '• the temporal courts take no cognizance of it otherwise than as a private injury" (Blackst one's Commeiit. bk. iv, chap. 4). In our country it is visited with punishment according to law in almost all the states — Xew York, which has followed EngUsh law, and one or two other states, being exceptions ; but it is safe to say that prosecutions for the crime of adul- tery are very rare indeed. The protection afforded by such laws is ven.- small, except so far as they testify that society regards crimes against marriage as deserv- ing of civil penalties.