Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

give to him, his wife and the child, the rights of Roman citizens.

The deductio in domum is often considered as a necessary ceremony for commencing matrimony; but though it seems to have been a usual ceremony, as well as the declaration before friends, inter amicos, it was by no means necessary for the legal completion of the marriage, yet it was another act by which a legitimate matrimony was proved, and from which it was counted in point of time.

The lawyer Scævola, who lived under Marcus Aurelius, says, in a quotation in the Pandects, in speaking about a donation, whether it was made after or before the marriage, "priusquam ad eum transiret (that is to say, the virgo) et priusquam aqua et igni acciperetur, id est, nuptiæ celebrentur" (Dig. xxiv. tit. i.), it seems, therefore, that the ceremony of giving water and fire, the two principle elements as a sign for the "consortium omnis vita" was still in use in the latter part of the second century after Christ, and formed, together with the "deductio in domum," the general way of entering married life. The receiving of water and fire played formerly a part in the religious ceremony of the confarreatio; but this confarreatio was no longer customary at the time of Augustus, except with the marriage of some flamines, some of the highest priests.

The Romans, or rather the inhabitants of the Roman empire, therefore, it is certain, did not even in the latest ante-Christian era, enter generally so unceremoniously upon the bond of marriage; for even some religious rites were preserved amongst the heathen subjects of Rome as late as the time of Marcus Aurelius, when already Christianity began to spread her communities in the eastern parts of the Roman empire. It might be supposed that, when Constantine planted Christianity upon the throne of the Cæsars, this new religion would have had nothing more eagerly to do than to change entirely

an institution which is so closely connected with religion. We might fancy that it would have been the first business of the Christian bishops to urge on the civil government the necessity of submitting matrimony to the regulations of the church. But though several of the first Christian emperors issued unimportant changes in the laws about the relationship of the married parties, none thought of introducing a fixed form for the marriage. Justinian, though he pronounced matrimony to be a mere civil contract, was the first who attempted to connect it legally with the church.

In a novel of the year 538 he ordered that all persons belonging to the rank of a senator, or who could claim the title "illustres" and upwards, should make written pacta dotalia when concluding a marriage; persons of less rank, though not belonging to the lowest classes, should go into an oratory and declare there, before the "defensor ecclesiæ," a kind of churchwarden, in presence of three or four ecclesiastics, their intention to marry. But so strong was in the Roman empire the idea that the wedding was a mere private affair, with which public powers should not meddle, that already, four years afterwards, Justinian abolished again this order, as far as it concerns the church, and only preserved the necessity of the written pacta dotalia for the highest classes. This apparently strange phenomenon is easily explained by the internal condition of the Christian church itself. The Church of Christ was still satisfied with the internal approbation and the faith of man, and had not grown into a church. which appeared in the same time as a worldly institution, adorned with worldly power and worldly glory. The church of these ages had her dominion rather in the voluntary and hearty submission of man, than in the splendour of her ceremonies and the terrestial power of her bishops. It had always been the custom, in the first Christian

sense.

communities whose every-day actions were, to say, so saturated with religious feelings that no betrothal took place without the concurrence and sanction of the elders. That this ecclesiastic or rather religious concurrence took place more at the betrothal than at the wedding itself, is a fact which manifests the conviction that the real union of the persons commenced with their mutual consense to belong to each other, and that the marriage, in a mere religious point of view, is completed by that conWith this view, the contemporary heathen world of Rome entirely agreed, as we have shewn. That which was an internal religious want in the earlier times of Christianity, became a habit in the later ages. Every betrothal was then regularly announced to the Christian clergy, and every marriage blessed by them. This explains the absence of any law, civil or ecclesiastic, that commanded the sanction of religion for the marriage for some time after Justinian, as the bishops had no need to enforce by laws what was voluntarily and heartily given to them; and the civil authorities were too much accustomed to consider matrimony as a mere private contract, based upon conditions which lie beyond the civil power. When, after a further development of the worldly organization of the church, marriage and its relations came under the ecclesiastic jurisdiction, a far greater importance was still laid upon the publication of the bann and the consecration of the betrothed, than upon the wedding itself. If I am not mistaken, it is first in the weddingliturgies of the fifteenth century that we read the words. "ego vos conjugo in matrimonium in nomine Dei," when the priest performed the proper act of copulation as proxy of God, a long time after matrimony had been considered as a sacrament in the church, though it was only legally raised to that dignity in the Council of Trent.

ELEVENTH ORDINARY MEETING.

ROYAL INSTITUTION, 22nd March, 1858.

The Rev. H. HIGGINS, M.A., Sen. V.P., in the Chair.

Professor ARCHER referred to recent valuable gifts to the library of the Royal Institution.

Mr. HIGGINSON exhibited a specimen of aluminum, and referred to the process of its manufacture. The following paper was then read:

ON THE FOSSILS OF PERIM ISLAND, IN THE GULF OF CAMBAY.

BY HENRY DUCKWORTH, Esq., F.G.S.

PERIM is a small island in the Gulf of Cambay, ten miles S.S.E. of Gogo, in lat. 21° 33′ N., and long. 72° 28′ E. It is one and a half to two miles in length, and a half to three quarters of a mile in breadth. The most elevated point is about sixty feet above high-water mark.

From the Kattiawar shores it is separated by a channel five hundred feet in width, and seventy-five fathoms deep. The average depth of the Gulf to the north and elsewhere, is about fifty-five fathoms. There is a tradition current among the inhabitants of Gogo that Perim was originally united to the main land by means of a stone bridge. This would seem hardly probable, if we take into consideration the width and depth of the intervening channel at the present day; though certainly there are appearances which, independently of the geological evidence hereafter to be adduced, and which I think conclusive, would justify the supposition that at some very distant period there may have been a natural,

if not an artificial, connection. The beach on the western side shelves very gradually, and at the lowest ebb of spring tides the island appears as if separated from the continent by a mere stream only. That the sea, too, has been encroaching on all sides, is proved, I think, by the fact that on the shore have been discovered two figures of elephants, eight or nine feet in height, carved out of the solid rock, and which, except at the very lowest tides, are completely covered. There are also remains of a stone structure running out into the sea, and somewhat resembling a pier; but whether they have any connection with the apparently mythical bridge, it is impossible

to say.

The island is inhabited by four or five lascars, and a few coolies; the former have charge of the lighthouse, which stands on the highest ground, on the western side; the latter live in a valley on the eastern coast, open to the sea, and the only fertile spot: here they have formed a settlement, and plant grain during the monsoon, and manage, somehow or other, to exist in this dreary land. Good fresh water is found about twenty feet below the surface.

The only other living creatures besides human beings, are, I think, peafowl, which abound, and are wonderfully tame and fearless: no man's hand is against them, for they are deities. To kill a peacock were sacrilege--not a breach of the game-laws,

The low muddy beach on the northern end is covered with clumps of the melancholy mangrove tree; the opposite coast of Kattiawar I observed to be also fringed with it. Remains of a temple with an image of Buddha in it, a ruined fort and water tanks are to be seen, from which it would appear that the island had been a considerable stronghold some twelve or thirteen centuries ago.

« НазадПродовжити »