[1336] Wootton, Linc.: Burn, Parish Registers, 26 n. 1.
[1337] Burn, op. cit., 161.
[1338] Ibid., 161. See similar examples in Waters, Parish Registers in England, 18, 19.
[1339] Friedberg, Eheschliessung, 325; Geschichte der Civilehe, 13, 14.
[1340] Milton, Prose Works (Bohn, 1848), III, 21, 22. This volume contains a series of discussions on marriage and divorce, which together embody all the learning which the Puritan could produce in support of his theories: The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce; The Judgment of Martin Bucer; Tetrachordon; Colasterion, etc.
Milton does not anywhere discuss the form of solemnization (cf. Friedberg, op. cit., 327, note). In his "Exposition on Places of Scripture which treat of Marriage" (Works, III, 341-46), after considering the definitions given by many writers, he produces one of his own. "Marriage," he says, "is a divine institution, joining man and woman in a love fitly disposed to the helps and comforts of domestic life." But he rejects the doctrine of the Fathers and canonists that marriage is a "remedy." The "internal Form and soul of this relation is conjugal love arising from a mutual fitness to the final causes of wedlock, help and society in religious, civil, and domestic conversation, which includes as an inferior end the fulfilling of natural desire, and specifical increase."—Ibid., 342.
[1341] 12 C. II., c. 33: Statutes at Large, III, 24. Cf. Friedberg, op. cit., 330. It is curious to see Ashton, The Fleet: Its River, Prison, and Marriages (London, 1889), 332, referring to this act as designed merely to legalize common law or private marriages before witnesses, making no mention whatever of the act of 1653.
[1342] 5 and 6 W. III., c. 21: Statutes at Large, III, 358-62.
[1343] It should be remembered that even in case of the secret or irregular marriages the priest often officiated. The great object was to avoid publicity. Hence churches which were or claimed to be free from the visitations or oversight of the bishop allowed marriage without banns or license. This became a lucrative source of revenue. For example, in the church of St. James, Duke's Place, between 1664 and 1691, about forty thousand marriages were thus celebrated; and many were celebrated at Trinity Minores: Burn, Fleet Marriages, 2-5; idem, Parish Registers, 146; Friedberg, Eheschliessung, 332-35. Cf. also Jeaffreson's chapter on "Prisons and 'Lawless' Churches," in Brides and Bridals, II, 115-21.
[1344] 6 and 7 W. III., c. 6, § 52: Statutes at Large, III, 370. Cf. Hammick, Marriage Law of England, 10; also Jeaffreson's chapter on "Taxes on Celibacy," op. cit., II, 78 ff., and 131 ff., 167 ff.