The penalty provided by the Act was not, under the existing circumstances, too severe; for, in view of the evils wrought by those practices, it was necessary to provide the greatest discouragement possible to this traffic. Much more then than now, a marriage, once performed, was irrevocable. Divorce courts, for redress of matrimonial injuries, were unknown, and the drunken and the reckless who had taken part so lightly in a Fleet marriage were held to their bargain for life.
But the Act, beneficent though it was, did not pass without great opposition, and even when it became law, its operation was confined to England; with the result that the only difficulty in the way of a clandestine marriage that should be sufficiently legal was that of making a journey out of England; whether across the English Channel to Calais, or into the Isle of Man, or across the Border into Scotland, was immaterial. The Isle of Man was for a brief period a favourite place, but the House of Keys, the legislature of that isle, in 1757 passed an Act forbidding marriages other than by banns or special license, with a penalty identical with that provided by the English Act for clergymen who should infringe it; while any layman performing any such ceremony was very roughly dealt with: the penalties in his case being—
1. To be pilloried.
2. To lose his ears.
3. To be imprisoned until the Governor saw fit to release him, on payment of a fine not exceeding £50.
After the passing of this Act we hear little or nothing of clandestine marriages being celebrated in the Isle of Man.
The Channel Islands, and particularly Guernsey, were then occasionally favoured, but the difficulties of access prevented them ever becoming popular with the love-lorn, who very generally, while prepared to suffer many things, drew the line at sea-sickness.
FILIAL AFFECTION.
[After Rowlandson.