It is in our common tendencies, however, that the legal attitudes of the seven nations show most striking accord. Jenks, quoted earlier, concludes that we are in favour of uniformity, simplicity, greater freedom of the individual, and more fluidity of capital and labour, so much so, that "The courts will not even enforce effectively a contract of service. To do that, it is said, would be to legalize slavery, and the fact that the slave has become such by his own act makes no difference. It is considered that the perfect spontaneity of labour is of more value than the sacredness of contract."[70-2] Further than this, actual legislation repeats itself in the many Pan-Angle law-making bodies. The British Isles, {71} Massachusetts, New Zealand, and Australia test the merits or demerits of a minimum wage law. Compulsory insurance, old age pensions, maternity benefits, and arbitration statutes spring up everywhere. In efforts to solve some problems one part of the Pan-Angles leads; in others another part. Whether this is regarded as reform or experimentation is not under present discussion. The whole Pan-Angle civilization appears headed towards what is called by some social amelioration and by others paternalism. Whatever its true name, this race progress starts from a greater recognition of the individual and hopes for his greater comfort and welfare.
Of law among the Pan-Angles it may be said that it shows plainly its relation to English common law; that it is affected by local conditions resulting from historical causes; that it exhibits certain common tendencies, and among those is a regard for the individual and a passing from the viewpoint of status to that of contract.
All this can be seen in the laws regarding marriage and divorce. These, as well as our prejudices in such matters, are still largely determined by the dead hand of the Middle Ages. But the Teutonic ideal of the equality of the marriage partnership has survived the accumulation of dogma. Our release from its grip has not depended on the divorce of an English king, nor the accompanying religious schism. There is in us that which was destined to carry us up through the pains of changing social conditions to more satisfactory relations between the husband and the wife and society.
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In our efforts to attain our ideals we are using many local laws. The British Isles have three: English, Scottish, and Irish. If the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man were considered, there would be six. Besides this, members of the royal family are subject to special restrictions. Newfoundland and New Zealand have marriage laws of their own. Canada has eleven, the Union of South Africa has four, and Australia six.[72-1] In the United States there are forty-eight. This makes a total of seventy-four sets of laws in the seven self-governing nations regarding who may marry and divorce and how.
These seventy-four different sets are not, however, strange and dissimilar. As in the case of suffrage, each one has many points identical with many others, and the range of variation is small. All are monogamous; all allow freedom of choice to the marrying parties; all hold marriage and divorce to be civil matters, and consider ministers and priests of religious denominations as civil officials for the legalizing of marriages. All prohibit marriage within certain degrees of relationship, the tendency being not to include among them the relationship-by-marriage impediments surviving from medieval practice, such as the various deceased spouse's brother or sister laws. The majority allow divorce, although in some, like Newfoundland and South Carolina, marriage is by law indissoluble. The trend at present seems to be towards safe-guarding marriage, but to make easier the means of divorce. Men and women are coming more {73} nearly to an equality before the law. Such enactments as that of New South Wales permitting a husband and wife to contract financially with each other shows the trend of our beliefs in the rights of any individual to be a distinct personality.
The sacred beauty of the marriage tie no people hold higher than do the Pan-Angles. With them it is not a status imposed from without, but the voluntary union of two individuals. John Stuart Mill voiced an aspiration of the entire Pan-Angle civilization when he wrote: "What marriage may be in the case of two persons of cultivated faculties, identical in opinions and purposes, between whom there exists that best kind of equality, similarity of powers and capacities with reciprocal superiority in them—so that each can enjoy the luxury of looking up to the other, and can have alternately the pleasure of leading and of being led in the path of development—I will not attempt to describe. To those who can conceive it, there is no need; to those who cannot, it would appear the dream of an enthusiast. But I maintain, with the profoundest conviction, that this, and this only, is the ideal of marriage; . . . "[73-1]
In no sphere is the individualism of the Pan-Angle more rampant than in matters of religion. Liberty of conscience to him is as necessary as liberty of body, and he has struggled to obtain it with the same persistency.
Once the status of nationality carried with it {74} automatic inclusion in the national church. A diversity of faiths in one nation was unthinkable. Any who refused to conform, in semblance at least, were considered by the group as outsiders and enemies, to be harried and pillaged, perhaps slaughtered. Later, though leave to live was granted to those of minority creeds, they were debarred from the exercise of certain civil privileges. In the British Isles, not until 1858 were Jews able to take oaths as members of the Houses of Parliament. Still later, though all might share equally in the duties and rights of citizenship, all were compelled to contribute directly or, indirectly to the support of the state church, and, unless openly avowing otherwise, were presumed to belong to it. Some Pan-Angles still linger in this stage—those, for example, who reside in Quebec or England. This is the significance of the state church to-day.
To the majority of the Pan-Angles, however, religion is a private matter—not a public matter. In short, it is a concern in which the majority are not to interfere with the minority and in which the minority are not asked to acquiesce in the feelings of the majority. This is a condition not easily achieved. Migration from the British Isles by no means ended all contention. "Everywhere, indeed, that British settlers went this strife of sects went with them."[74-1] Six out of the seven nations were founded after our British predecessors had begun the battle for religious freedom. All six have known state churches in one form or {75} another, sometimes with attendant persecutions. To-day five thrive without state churches. Even in Quebec and England taxation for the benefit of one's neighbour's church is the only penalty against free worshipping. Elsewhere, throughout the Pan-Angle world, one may hold any creed he will, and the state does not ask him to contribute to any church, nor does the state assist, or recognize one creed above another.