Scotch Marriages. band and wife, and followed or preceded by their living together, was held to be a valid marriage. Very early the General Assembly decreed that no contract of marriage made secretly, with subsequent co-habitation, should be recognized till the offenders, as breakers of good order," submitted to disci pline, and by " famous and unsuspect wit nesses " the contract was verified. After the Reformation it was enacted by the General Assembly that all who wished to marry must submit their names to the minis ter, or session clerk, for proclamation of their banns for three successive Sabbaths. Later on, in consideration of a larger fee the banns might be called for a first, second and third time at one service. Occasionally objection was made to the proposed marriage; once in 1594, in a church in Perthshire, objections were made, and the objecter put them thus : "The man was an idiot, and nocht of wit an judgment to govern himself, and the woman was ane proud young bangster hizzie wha had goglit him in his simplicitie." In the early days of the Reformed Church forty days had to elapse between "the book ing" of the banns and the marriage. Dur ing this time the expectant bride lived in semi-seclusion : only her intimates visited her and these young folks rubbed shoulders with her to catch "matrimonial infection." The forty days during which ordinary mortals had to reside in the parish prior to their marriage was relaxed at the seaports. To Portpatrick, for instance, many couples came from Ireland. The session clerk on receiving a guinea fee, entered the village church and there proclaimed the banns; and then the minister (for a still handsomer re ward) tied the nuptial knot, and the parties inside an hour could be back on their ship bearing a marriage certificate. A western divorce could not be more expeditious. In 1826 Portpatrick marriages were forbidden by the Church. With true Scottish love of knowledge some of the Kirk-sessions insisted upon an
427
educational test for candidates for wedlock (the Commonwealth of Massachusetts precribes one for citizenship). In 1579 the session of St Andrews decreed that " none be resaivit to compleit the bond of matromonye without they reherse to the redar the Lord's Prayer, the Believe, and the Com mandments." The previous year a Perth session considering that those who desire their banns called "are almost altogether ignorant and misknow the causes why they should marry," ordered all to appear before the reader to be instructed in the true knowledge of the causes of matrimony. Clandestine marriages were highly disap proved of; in 1 66 1 Parliament enacted that "whatsoever person or persons shall here after marry, or procure themselves to be mar ried in a clandestine and inorderly way, or by Jesuit priests, or any other not authorised by the Kirk, shall be imprisoned for three months : and besides there said imprison ment, shall pay, each nobleman,,£1ooo. Scots; each baron and landed gentleman, 1000 marks; each gentleman and burgess ,6500; each other person, 100 marks: and shall remain in prison, and until they make payment of these respective penalties." And the celebrator of such marriages was to be banished, and never again to return to the kingdom under pain of death. Matrimonial alliances with Englishwomen were not encouraged in the old days. In the eleventh year of James VI, an act was passed with a preamble, stating that since experience declared that the marriage of the king's subjects upon the daughters of the broken men and thieves of England was not only a hindrance to his majesty's service and obedience, but also to the common peace and quietness betwixt the two realms, and enact ing that none of James's subjects should presume to take upon hand to marry with any Englishwoman, dwelling in the opposite marches, without his majesty's express li cense under the great seal, under the pain of death and confiscation of all his movable
