[664] By the law of 1875 marriages are thus celebrated before the local Standesbeamten: Kohler, Das Eherecht des bürg. Gesetzbuches, 16, 17, 55 ff.
[665] Counting Hawaii which was not included in chap. xvi.
[666] In "Diagnostics of Divorce," Jour. of Soc. Sci. (Am. Assoc.), XIV, 136, Professor Robertson takes the extreme view that "no person should be marriageable under the age of 21, and a marriage ceremony celebrated between persons either of whom is under age should be ipso facto void."
[667] Neither in England nor anywhere in the United States is a marriage declared void for want of parental consent. The leading case on the point is Parton v. Hervey, 1 Gray, 119. "Some years ago a young girl, only thirteen years of age, named Sarah Hervey, was enticed away from her widowed mother's house by a young fellow, named Parton, of bad character and dissolute habits, who by false representations as to the age of the girl, procured a marriage license, and persuaded a magistrate to formally marry them. She returned to the house of her mother who forbade the young man to see her. Upon his petition against the mother for writ of habeas corpus, the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth, after full consideration, ordered the young wife to be surrendered to the husband, and he bore her away in triumph.... The mother then brought suit against a confederate of the husband, who had aided in enticing away the girl and in practising the fraud upon the magistrate; but the mother again failed in her efforts to vindicate her rights to protect her daughter, since it distinctly appeared that the marriage was with the daughter's full and free consent."—Hervey v. Moseley (1856), 7 Gray, 449; as summarized by Bennett, "Uniformity in Mar. and Div. Laws," Am. Law Register, N. S., XXXV, 222.
[668] Laws of N. H. (1903), 79.
[669] Louisiana formerly had a law requiring notice of intention to be filed fifteen days before issue of license; but it appears to have been repealed. In Porto Rico the period of delay is ten days.
[670] As suggested by Cook, "The Mar. Cel. in the U. S.," Atlantic, LXI, 687.
[671] The laxity of the law in this respect, coupled with that of permitting the license to be issued without delay, is the most fruitful source of clandestine marriages. There are many so-called "Gretna Greens" in the United States. One is (or was) at Aberdeen, O.: Whitney, Marriage and Divorce, 43; another at Greenwich, Conn. Oct. 2, 1900, the San Francisco Chronicle had the following telegram: "Greenwich's reputation as a Gretna Green and that of Judge Burns of Greenwich of the Borough court as one who marries all who come, appears to have extended to the Pacific Slope. On Saturday there arrived in town —— —— of Alameda, California, and —— —— of Los Angeles, California. They went to Judge Burns' office, arranged for the marriage ceremony, and then secured a marriage license from the town clerk.... Immediately after the ceremony" they "left town, maintaining the greatest secrecy as is the usual custom." Another wedding resort, for the benefit of Chicago, is the little town of St. Joseph, Mich., where in the four years, 1897-1900, 1,594 licenses are said to have been issued to persons residing outside the state, the ceremony being performed by ministers. In 1903 an attempt to adopt the Wisconsin plan, requiring an interval of five days between the issue of the license and the celebration, failed by a very few votes.
[672] Examples are given by Dike, "Statistics of Marriage and Divorce," Pol. Sci. Quart., IV, 597.
[673] On the faults of the registration laws see ibid., 594, 595.