all these witnesses, imprints on her willing lips this inviolable scal of union.

XIV. Last of all, in the Greek church, where the ceremony of crowning is still observed, the priest removes the wreath of the bridegroom, and says:

"Be thou, O bridegroom, magnified as Abraham: be thou blessed as Isaac: be thou multiplied as Jacob: walking in peace and accomplishing in righteousness the commandments of God." Removing the wreath of the bride,

"Be thou, O bride, magnified as Sarah: be thou gladdened as Rebecca: be thou multiplied as Rachel: rejoicing in thine own husband: keeping the commandments of the law for so hath God willed." "

The wreaths are then laid on the altar and preserved for eight days, when the partics are expected to return to the church and resume the crowns. Further prayers are then said for the prosperity of the newly married pair, and the wreaths are laid aside."

"

Εν « Μεγαλύνθητι, Νυμφίε, ὡς ὁ ̓Αβραὰμ καὶ εὐλογήθητι ὡς ὁ Ἰσαὰκ, καὶ πληθύνθητι ὡς ὁ Ἰακώβ, πορευόμενος ἐν εἰρήνῃ, καὶ ἐργαζόμενος ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ τὰς ἐντολὰς τοῦ Θεοῦ.

• Καὶ σὺ Νύμφη, μεγαλύνθητι ὡς ἡ Σάββα, καὶ εὐφράνθητι ὡς ἡ Ρεβέκκα, καὶ πληθύνθητι ὡς ἡ Ραχήλ, εὐφραινομένη τῷ ἰδίῳ ἀνδρὶ, φυλάττουσα τοὺς ὅρους τοῦ νόμου, ὅτι οὕτως εὐδόκησεν ὁ Θεός.”—Euchologion, 1. c. ** See the Ceremony of the Eastern church. Appen. C.

VII.

AUDIBLE STIPULATIONS AND VOWS.

WE

E now return from our passage through the warm and rosy region of the sentiments-a realm which of necessity is greatly open and vague-to survey the cooler and more sharply defined domain of duty and law.

THE HUSBAND'S STIPULATIONS OF ESPOUSAL. [The Minister shall say to the Man:

M, Wilt thou have this Woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, and, forsaking all others, keep thee only to her, so long as ye both shall live?

The Man shall answer,
I will.]

THE WIFE'S STIPULATIONS OF ESPOUSAL.

[Then the Minister shall say unto the Woman: N-, Wilt thou have this Man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God's ordinance

in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health, and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?

The Woman shall answer,
I will.]

The transacting of these mutual stipulations, is technically called the Espousals. In ancient times, universally, as at the present day throughout all the East, this Ceremony preceded by a considerable period, (commonly days or weeks, but sometimes months and years,)' the assumption of the final Vows, and consummation of the Marriage. Such is still the practice in Eastern Christendom; and the Greek Liturgy contains a distinct service for each of the two occasions.' "There is evidence of separate espousals having been made in England as late as the time of Charles I."

In the case cited, two years and three-quarters intervened between the public espousals in Church, and the completion of the Marriage Ritc

Namely, ̓Ακολουθία ἐπὶ μνηστοῖς: ἦτοι τοῦ ̓Αρραβῶνος καὶ τοῦ Στεφανώματος .

Blunt, Annotated Prayer Book, 1. c.

1

in the same Church.' The intervening period, however, seems to have been limited in England to a much shorter time. For the very old English oath of Espousals was in the following form: "You swear by God, and His holy saints herein, [the congregation standing in the Church as witnesses,] and by all the saints in Paradise, that you will take this Woman, whose name is N, to wife, within forty days, if Holy Church permit;' and the same, (mutatis mutandis,) for the Woman. In our present form, which includes all under one general Ceremony, the distinction is still retained, by the separation of the Stipulations from the Vows and by the use of the future tense in the one, while the present is used in the other; though both are executed in immediate succession.

These stipulations of Espousal, which are in fact the core in every legal Marriage, the contract which binds before the civil law," are very simple

That is from 10th of January, 1630, to 31st of October, 1633. Anciently, in the Church of the West, at least, if Marriage were not consummated within two years, it was regarded as a breach of contract, and, like desertion after Marriage, freed the other party, with damages, etc. See Bingham xxii., iii. 9.

• Blunt, 1. c.

"The Roman civil law declared, that sufficit nudus consensus ad constituenda sponsalia.' Chancellor Kent quotes another passage from the Digest, Nuptias, non concubitus, sed consensus facit,' and adds: This is the language equally of the com

and very explicit; yet two or three of the terms may bear an additional observation.

Wedded, is an old Saxon word, meaning "covenanted." The term is inserted here more completely to determine and limit the names husband and wife. It is intended thoroughly to separate them from all other partial or possible senses, and to bind their meaning to the state of a real, acknowledged, lawful consort-a state which is placed, by this executed covenant, under all the protections of human law on the one hand, and made amenable to all its restrictions and penal enactments on the other.

The Stipulations are the same, and in the same words, by both parties, excepting that where the husband covenants to comfort the wife, she covenants in return to obey him and serve him.

"Comfort," as here used, according to the interpretation of the civil law, (which, as has been intimated above, must afford the fundamental and proper sense of this particular article in the Cerc

mon and canon law, and of common reason. If this means that the covenant of the parties is the essence of marriage, and that the ceremonies of celebration are but its form, this is undoubtedly true.'"-Parsons on Contracts, Vol. I., p. 557.

"The condition of Marriage is entered into through, and only through, the door of contract."--Bishop, Commentary on the Law of Marriage and Divorce, Vol. I, p. 122.

Compare also Pomeroy, Introduction to Municipal Law, Art. 741.