[270] Ibid., 338. A representative Catholic writer, Rev. William Humphrey, S. J., defending the sacramental doctrine of marriage, transposes Milton's phrase, declaring the woman in paradise and "as she is now" to be the "subordinate equal of man."—Christian Marriage, 16.
[271] Cf. Jeaffreson, op. cit., II, 339, 340.
[272] Pollock and Maitland, Hist. of Eng. Law, II, 392: Co. Lit. , 32a, 33b, 235a.
[273] Year Book, 10 Edw. III., fol. 35 (Trin. pl. 24): Pollock and Maitland, op. cit., II, 392.
[274] Glanville, Tractatus, VI, 17; Bracton, De legibus, fol. 92, 304. Britton, II, 264, seems to say, though his statement is somewhat confusing, that in case of divorce a mensa et thoro "if verified or not denied, the wife shall not recover any dower." Were not that interpretation of the law in the highest degree improbable, Britton's context might appear to show that such a divorce worked a complete dissolution of marriage. "In the recorded cases it is often difficult to see whether the divorce that is pleaded is a dissolution of marriage; e. g., Note Book, pl. 690. It is believed however that divortium, standing by itself, generally points to a divorce [nullification] a vinculo, e. g., in Lit. sec. 380."—Pollock and Maitland, op. cit., II, 392 n. 5. Bishop, Marriage, Divorce, and Separation, I, §§ 1497, 1498 n. 3, appears to think that the "effect of a divorce for adultery ... was to dissolve the marriage" bond, because the guilty woman may "not be heard upon a claim of dower" (Beames, Glanville, 133). But this view is surely wrong, as the researches of Pollock and Maitland have finally established: op. cit., II, 372-95. Their results are thus summarized (373): "If however we can not argue that a woman was not married because she can not claim dower, still less can we argue that a union is a marriage because the issue of it will—or is not a marriage because the issue of it will not—be capable of inheriting English land."
[275] As by the statute of Westminster, II, c. 34, under Ed. I.: Pollock and Maitland, op. cit., II, 392, 393.
[276] The term "voidable" as applied to marriage is still used in various senses besides the special meaning referred to in the text. For a full discussion see Bishop, Marriage, Divorce, and Separation, I, chap. xiii, §§ 252-92.
[277] See the excellent discussion of the relation of the spiritual and temporal law in cases of "putative" wedlock by Pollock and Maitland, op. cit., II, 373 ff.
[278] Ibid., 375; ap. Year Book, 11-12 Ed. III., xx-xxii; for the early period see Glanville, Tractatus, VI, 17; Bracton, De legibus, fol. 63. Cf. also Woolsey, Divorce 124.
[279] Pollock and Maitland, op. cit., II, 375 n. 3. Cf. Blackstone, Commentaries, I, 440; Co. Lit., 233, 235; also Glasson, Hist. du droit, IV, 152; Burn, Ecc. Law, II, 501b-501c.