that fixed by the Incas, a race which worked out all its social problems without external influence. With them females were not held to have attained a marriageable age until they were eighteen, and male's not until they were four and twenty.24 The Greeks in the regulation of families, as in other matters, aimed at perfection, and their great desire was to establish a race such as their sculptors patterned in marble. Plutarch says that in the days of Lycurgus the brides were never of small and tender years, and when some foreign lady remarked to the wife of Leonidas that the women of Lacedæmon were the only ones in the world who could rule men, she was met with the ready answer, "with good reason, for we are the only women who bring forth men.” 25 Their philosophers, longing for the ideal, preached a higher standard than it was possible for frail human nature to attain. Plato was of opinion that women should not marry until they were twenty, and men only when they were twenty-five, and he urged that anyone entering wedlock below these ages should be considered to have done an unholyand unrighteous thing.26 Aristotle differed from him widely. He would allow women to marry at the age of eighteen, but their husbands should be men of at least seven and thirty, for the reason that "where men and women are accustomed to marry young, the people are small and weak; more of the young matrons die, and the bodily frames of their consorts are stunted in their growth." 27 While these philosophic ideas were Utopian, they must have exercised a potent influence and helped in the formation of that noble race which, small in numbers but rich in quality, achieved results glorious and imperishable. With the advent of Roman dominion an era of legislation was inaugurated which proved her richest legacy to posterity. Her great jurisconsults were guided by the law of nature, which is defined in the Institutes as "that law which nature teaches to all animals. Hence comes that yoking together of male and female which we term matrimony." 28 It followed from this in the logical Roman mind that union must be permitted as soon as nature allowed. The leaders of the School of the Proculians were in favor of a particular 24 PRESCOTT, Conquest of PERU, Book I, chap. 3. 25 PLUTARCH, LIFE OF LYCUrgus. 26 PLATO, REPUBLIC, Book V. 27 ARISTOTLE, POLITICS, Book VII, chap. 16. 28 DIGEST, I. I. I. 3. age being determined upon as that of puberty; the Sabinians wished to let it be regulated by nature. Justinian decided in favor of the Proculians and fixed the ages at which physical maturity should be assumed at fourteen for males and twelve for females.29 Had this low standard been coupled with the superstitious incentive which hurried the peoples of the East into matrimony the result would have been a like increase of population. Superstitious the Romans were, in high degree, but their thoughts were centered far more on the joys of this world than of the next. They loved luxurious living, and the responsibility entailed in the care of large families would have interfered with personal pleasure. Another reason also served to retard too rapid a growth of population. They were constantly engaged in strife. Civil discords and foreign wars weakened them, and in destroying others they were themselves destroyed. Montesquieu points out that, incessantly in action, engaged in conquest and in the most violent attempts, they wore out like a weapon kept constantly in use.30 It actually became necessary, for reasons of state, to incite the people to marriage, and it is significant that the emperors appealed, not to their hopes of heaven, but to their desire for official honors and earthly gain. Cæsar offered rewards to those who had many children and Augustus imposed penalties upon the unmarried. Assembling the knights to explain the purposes of his laws, Julia et Papia Poppaea, he thus addressed them: "While sickness and war snatch so many citizens, what must become of the state if marriages are no longer contracted? The city does not consist of houses, of porticos, of public places, but of inhabitants. You do not see men like those mentioned in fable springing out of the earth to take care of your affairs. . . . My only view is the perpetuity of the republic. I have increased the penalties of those who have disobeyed; and with respect to rewards, they are such as I do not know whether virtue has ever received greater. For less will a thousand men expose life itself; and yet will not these engage you to take a wife and provide for children." 31 Under succeeding emperors these penalties were gradually relaxed and the rewards decreased. The influence of Stoic philosophy, voluptuousness, almost unlimited right of divorce, and, in strange 29 INSTITUTES, Lib. I, tit. XXII. 30 SPIRIT OF THE LAWS, Book XXIII, chap. 20 contrast, the advocacy of continence by those who embraced Christianity, all retarded natural increase. Thus from very dearth of men to resist the barbarian hordes, Rome fell. Her place was soon occupied by the Catholic Church, whose sway became wider and more powerful than that of the great Empire had ever been, and the regulation of matrimony was one of its particular cares. Following the Roman law as to the age of maturity, the Council of Trent decreed that males could marry at fourteen and females at the age of twelve. Through the canon law this became the law of England and of all countries over which the Church exercised ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The religious ceremonies with which the nuptial tie was surrounded insured the supervision and influence of the priests and presented an almost insuperable obstacle to the union of children who were unfit. Early marriages of the physically mature, however, were looked upon with favor. They increased the number of the faithful and overcame all temptation to a riotous youth. Louis XIV, impelled by religious fervor, strove to encourage large families by his Edict of 1666, which granted pensions to those who had ten children, and much larger to those who had twelve, and the Canadian province of Quebec in recent years, for the same reason, has rewarded the parents of large families.32 In England the idealists perceived the danger to physical development arising out of early unions, and Sir Thomas More in his "Utopia" permits matrimony to women at eighteen and to men not before two and twenty.33 Gradually a natural repugnance to the alliance of children has found expression in legislation, and even in many Catholic countries the standard of the canon law has been raised.3 34 It is still conserved in Great Britain and all her colonies 32 Every father or mother of a family, born or naturalized and domiciled in this province, who has twelve children living, born in lawful wedlock, is entitled to one hundred acres of public lands, to be selected by him, subject to the conditions of concession and settlement required by the law respecting Crown Lands. STAT. OF QUEBEC, 1890, chap. 26. 33 MORE, UTOPIA. Book II, [chap. 7]. 34 The statistics which follow, and the notes thereon, except where otherwise indicated, are from special reports on marriage and divorce obtained by the U. S. Dept. of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of the Census, issued in 1909; supplemented in the case of Argentine, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Spain, Luxemburg, Portugal, Greece, and Holland by a British Parliamentary Return of 1894, part II, containing reports on the marriage laws in these countries and especially the ages at which marriages may be contracted. (except those oriental and the Canadian province of Ontario) 35; by seventeen states of the Union, influenced by English law; and by the Argentine Republic, Mexico, Spain, and Portugal. Greece, following the Byzantine code, has the same limit, while Chile merely exacts that the parties be of the age of puberty. All other nations and states have set a higher standard. In New Hampshire the proposed consorts must be fourteen and thirteen; in Austria and the province of Ontario, fourteen and fourteen; in Kansas and Missouri, fifteen and twelve; Brazil, Iowa, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, and the District of Columbia, sixteen and fourteen; Alabama, Arkansas, and Georgia, seventeen and fourteen; Servia,36 seventeen and fifteen; France, Italy, Belgium, Luxemburg, Roumania, California, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin, eighteen and fifteen; Holland, Hungary,37 Peru,38 Russia,39 Switzerland, Arizona, Delaware, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, West Virginia, and Wyoming, eighteen and sixteen; New York and Idaho, eighteen and eighteen; Denmark and Norway,40 twenty and sixteen; Bulgaria," twenty and eighteen; Germany, twenty-one and sixteen; Sweden and Finland, twenty-one and seventeen; and Washington, twenty-one and eighteen, in all cases the lower age being that for women. 42 It is interesting to note that while all authorities agree that maturity is hastened or retarded by climatic conditions, and is 35 Except when marriage at a younger age is necessary to prevent the illegitimacy of offspring. STAT. OF ONTARIO, 60 VIC., chap. 14, § 68. 36 By dispensation of a Bishop a man of fifteen or woman of thirteen may marry. 37 Dispensation from this requirement can be obtained from the Minister of Justice. In Croatia and Slavonia the age is as in the Austrian code. Females may, however, be permitted to marry after reaching the age of twelve upon dispensation from the Bishop or Pope, but the parties to such a marriage must be separated until both have attained the age required by the state. 38 R. DE GRASSERIE, CODE CIVILE PERUVIEN, 86. 39 Natives of Trans-Caucasia may marry at the completion of fifteen for males and thirteen for females. 40 These provisions are often interpreted as having reference to the age of puberty, and as this age varies with different persons, the law is not always followed literally, particularly as regards the marriageable age of women. 41 The Mohammedans in Bulgaria, forming thirteen per cent of the population, are governed in matrimonial matters by the rules of their religion. 42 In exceptional cases a man may be declared of age as early as the completion of his eighteenth year, and a dispensation may be granted to a woman who has not attained her sixteenth year. earliest in the tropics, this fact has been ignored in some notable instances. In the Canadian province of Quebec, which stretches to the arctic regions and should therefore have the highest standard, girls of twelve and boys of fourteen are declared capable of matrimony, while in the more southern province of Ontario girls are not eligible until they attain the age of fourteen.43 The same disregard of this physiological principle exists in some of the States, for in Vermont, which lies upon the northern boundary, girls may marry two years, and boys three years, earlier than those resident in Alabama, bordering on the Gulf of Mexico. In Sweden also the age limit is lower in the north than in the south, and Laplanders may marry earlier than any other persons within the realm.44 The changes in the age limit of France, however, have been based entirely upon climatic influence. Toullier says: "The law of the 20th September, 1792, had increased the old standard of twelve and fourteen by one year both for boys and girls, but the reform did not stop there. The Council of State was of opinion that the rule of the Roman and canon laws, originally established for Italy, was unsuited to our northern climate, and adopted the Prussian standard. Following the Prussian code (title of marriage No. 37) men could not marry before completing their eighteenth year, nor girls before fourteen. Even this was thought insufficient, and by article 144 of the code (Napoleon) it was increased by one year for girls, those of less than fifteen being declared incompetent to contract marriage.” 45 1946 Bonaparte held the opinion, which he vigorously but unsuccessfully pressed upon the Council of State, that owing to the difference of climate and customs an exception should be made in the case of French girls born in the Indies and that these should be permitted to marry at an earlier age.46 In many of the countries which still cling to the canon law standard of twelve and fourteen years the safeguard of ecclesiastical ceremony is no longer obligatory, and civil marriages are permitted without any increase in the limit of age. Why should a feeling of conservatism keep upon the statute books a law sanctioning that 43 QUEBEC CIVIL CODE, art. 115; STAT. OF ONTARIO, 60 VIC., chap. 14, § 68. 4U. S. Report on Marriage and Divorce, 1909, part I, p. 387. 45 Since increased. 46 I TOULLIER, LE DROIT CIVIL FRANÇAIS, 421. |