Sec. 57. Parent's consent to child's marriage.

"Ege. Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough; I beg the law, the law upon his head.

They would have stolen away, they would, Demetrius,

Thereby to have defeated you and me:

You, of your wife; and me of my consent;
Of my consent that she should be your wife."

In everything that relates to the domestic relations the English common law has a great superiority over the law of ancient Greece and Rome. Under the law of ancient Greece and Rome, the parental power continued not only during the child's minority, but during its entire life. The child could not marry without the consent of the parent; whatever he acquired, he acquired for the benefit of the parent, and, in fact, the child was regarded by the

The Fool, in King Lear, speaks of the "breath of an unfee'd lawyer." (Act I, Scene IV.)

Lucrece, in her complaint to Opportunity, which accomplished her ruin, said:

(911, 913.)

"When truth and virtue have to do with thee, A thousand crosses keep them from thy aid: They buy thy help, but Sin ne'er gives a fee." In Venus and Adonis, the following occurs: "Good night,' quoth she; and, ere he says, 'Adieu,' The honey fee of parting tender'd is." (537, 638.)

The Poet concludes, on Venus lost plea to Adonis:

"But all in vain; good queen, it will not be:

(607, 609.)

She hath assay'd as much as may be proved; Her pleading hath deserved a greater fee." Referring to Southampton's freedom from the Tower, the CXX Sonnet proceeds:

"But that your trespass now becomes a fee;

Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me." (13, 14.)

'Midsummer Night's Dream, Act IV, Scene II.

2 St. John's History of Manners & Customs of Ancient Greece. 120-125; Voyage du Anarcharis en Grece, iii, c. 26; Taylor's Elements of Civil Law, 395, 403.

law, rather as property of the parent, than in the light of a rational human being.'

In ecclesiastie law, in England, the want of the parent's consent to the marriage of a child was impedimentum impeditivum, or such an impediment as threw an obstruetion in the way of the celebration of the marriage, but it was not an impedimentum dirimens, or such an impedimen as would avoid a marriage once solemnized. At common law, in England, the marriage of infants even, provided they had arrived at years of consent, was held to be valid, as great mischiefs were found to grow out of the rule that marriages could be avoided, when solemnized without the consent of the parent."

But in presenting the rule obtaining in ancient Greece, the Poet was right in making the consent of the parent essential to a valid marriage of the child, so Egeus had a right to claim that his consent was essential to the mar riage of his daughter.

Sec. 58. Limitation of municipal law.

"Lys.

Our intent was, to be gone from Athens, where we might be,

Without the peril of the Athenian law."

The Old Athenian, in Timon of Athens, in refusing his consent to the marriage of his daughter to Lucillius, unless he brought a proper marriage portion, said: "Old. Ath. If in her marriage my consent be missing, I call the Gods to witness, I will choose mine heir from forth the beggars of the world, and dispossess her all." (Act I, Scene I.)

Simonides, in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, emphasizes the necessity for his consent to his daughter's marriage, with Pericles, when he said:

“Sim. . . . Will you, not having my consent, bestow,

Your love and your affections on a stranger?"

12 Kent's Comm. (12th ed.), 205.

1 Bishop's Mar. & Div. (4th ed.), 293.

'Ante idem.

(Act II, Scene V.)

4 Midsummer Night's Dream, Act IV, Scene II.

The Poet here recognizes that the validity of a rule of municipal law depends upon its being enforced within the limits of the municipality where it is invoked. The rule of law invoked against Lysander and Hermia, was a rule of municipal law, as distinguished from international law. The former laws apply only to particular municipalities or districts, while the latter obtain, even among different states or nations.1

11 Bl. Comm 44.

Sec. 59. Term-Subscribing to oath.

"King. You three, Biron, Dumain and Longaville,
Have sworn for three years' term to live with me,
My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes,
That are recorded in this schedule here:

Your oaths are past and now subscribe your names;
That his own hand may strike his honor down,
That violates the smallest branch herein:

If you are arm'd to do, as sworn to do,

Subscribe to your deep oath and keep it too."

As an oath can only be administered by some one authorized to administer oaths, and the form of taking the oath is not here presented, the Poet purposely accounts for this absence by saying that the oaths have already been

'Love's Labour's Lost. Act I, Scene I.

2 McLean, Cr. Cases, 135.

taken and the names are now but to be subscribed thereto. This verse abounds in proper legal phrases. One "subscribes" to an instrument of writing, when he places his signature at the bottom of the engagement or writing.1 "Term," in the law of contracts, is the space of time given for the discharge of an obligation. Statutes, until recorded are not usually enforceable, hence the rules of conduct here are announced as duly recorded. Indeed, the statute law, was understand as the written or recorded laws, to distinguish it from the unwritten or unrecorded laws, at common law.*

3

Give me the paper, let me read the

And to the strict'st decrees, I'll write my name."

"King. We must, of force, dispense with this decree, She must lie here, on mere necessity."

Decrees, as generally understood, are sentences or judgments of a court of equity, as distinguished from a court of law, but this is not the sense in which the term is used in this verse, for here the word is used as applying to a legislative act, not to a judgment of a court. In some countries, acts of the legislative branch of Government, or of the sovereign, which have the force and effect of laws, are spoken of as decrees, such as the Berlin and Milan decrees and this is the meaning in which the word is used here.

'From Latin, sub. under and scribo, to write.

Bouvier's Law Dictionary.

1 Bl. Comm. 85, 86; 4 Coke, 76.

'Bouvier's Law Dictionary.

'Love's Labour's Lost, Act I, Scene I.

7 Comyns Dig. 445.

'Bouvier's Law Dictionary.