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Untitled Article
jmtable , that by the ancient law of this country , as well as of perhaps all other Christian States , marriage is essentially a civil contract ; and that though in the progress of the ecclesiastical spirit of appropriation , which sought t < y brin ^ the properties ! and busin ess 6 f all mankind under its jurisdiction , attempts were made , as far as the power of the Church extended , to usurp the controul and celebration of the marriage ceremony ;
yet that hi the eye of the law , so far at any rate as it regarded the legal consequences of marriage , the subsistence of a binding contract between the parties was alone essential orMtt & tenal , The Dissenters , therefore , of England , were entitled to the celebration of their marriages , more especially after the date of the Toleration Act , which legalized their religious
services , —and that these marriages were valid in law , is clear from the existence at the present day of the same right asserted in actual practice among the Quakers , with regard to whom the legM question rests at this moment on precisely the same grounds as it did with respect to the general body of Dissenters before the Act 6 f the 26 George II .
It is however true , that the Dissenters in general did before that act conform in practice to the ritual of the Church * and several reasons contributed to induce this . It was , in the first place , of extreme importance that publicity and regularity should take place in celebrating and recording the marriage contract : —in the next place , the Dissenters agreed for the
most part in doctrine with the Church , and many of them felt little or no repugnance to occasional conformity ;—and lastly , though the common law courts supported their marriages ,: arid the ecclesiastical courts had no power to annul them , yet the latter had in several ways the means of annoyance and inconvenience to those who did not submit to their
regulations . In this state of things the Marriage Act was passed , and appears to have met with no opposition from the Dissenters , for the same reasons which had induced them to conform in previous practice . The measure was undoubtedly intended by those , who brought it forward , as a * mere
matter of civit regulation : in those cases where it appeared , to clash with religious discipline or opinion , relief was readily extended , by excepti ng the parties from its operation ; and upon the same principle the Unitarians of the present day are ( especially since the extension in their favour of the benefit of the Toleration Acts ) entitled to claim the same indulgence ,
as one which , they are warranted in saying , it appears from the tenor of the Marriage Act , would have been granted them , if they bad been of sufficient political consideration to have rendered it easy or prudent for them to protest against it at the time it passed . The Committee directed their attention in the first place to franripg- a petition to the Legislature , which they might recommend to the adoption of those who should be desirous to come forward on the occasion . Several
petitions have accordingly been signed by individuals of different ccmgregations , and forwarded for presentment to members , of the twoltouses of Parliament ; the principal of , thase to , the House of Commons being intrusted to William Smith , Esq ., who readily promised his assistance on the occasion .
On the subject of the relief to be sought , different opinions may tpprli ^ ps be formed ,, and have indeed existed in the Committee . It would . eprtainjy be ; the fairest and most liberal plan to release every Dissenter from a > convpulsive conformity , to the Established Church ,. and to make \ ttye Jfig ^ l . contract again , in practice as , vyeJ ^ as theory , .. la . erely eivy , ^ CMiri | i ^ Jthe . essentials of regulttjrity ia cdebration aad recoord , and leaving jeacU iiidi-
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 3, 1819, page 2, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1712/page/2/
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