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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow CHAP. XIII.: In what Cases, with regard to Marriage, we ought to follow the Laws of Religion; and in what Cases we should follow the Civil Laws. - Complete Works, vol. 2 The Spirit of Laws

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CHAP. XIII.: In what Cases, with regard to Marriage, we ought to follow the Laws of Religion; and in what Cases we should follow the Civil Laws. - Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Complete Works, vol. 2 The Spirit of Laws [1748]

Edition used:

The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu (London: T. Evans, 1777), 4 vols. Vol. 2.

Part of: Complete Works of Montesquieu, 4 vols.

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CHAP. XIII.

In what Cases, with regard to Marriage, we ought to follow the Laws of Religion; and in what Cases we should follow the Civil Laws.

IT has happened in all ages and countries, that religion has been blended with marriages. When certain things have been considered as impure or unlawful, and were nevertheless become necessary, they were obliged to call in religion, to legitimate in the one case, and to reprove in others.

On the other hand, as marriage is of all human actions that in which society is most interested, it became proper that this should be regulated by the civil laws.

Every thing which relates to the nature of marriage, its form, the manner of contracting it, the fruitfulness it occasions, which has made all nations consider it as the object of a particular benediction; a benediction which, not being always annexed to it, is supposed to depend on certain superior graces; all this, I say, is within the resort of religion.

The consequences of this union, with regard to property, the reciprocal advantages, every thing which has a relation to the new family, to that from which it sprung, and to that which is expected to arise; all this relates to the civil laws.

As one of the great objects of marriage is to take away that uncertainty which attends unlawful conjunctions, religion here stamps its seal, and the civil laws join theirs to it; to the end that it may be as authentic as possible. Thus, besides the conditions required by religion to make a marriage valid, the civil laws may still exact others.

The civil laws receive this power from their being additional obligations, and not contradictory ones. The law of religion insists upon certain ceremonies, the civil laws on the consent of fathers; in this case, they demand something more than that of religion, but they demand nothing contrary to it.

It follows from hence, that the religious law must decide whether the bond be indissoluble, or not; for if the laws of religion had made the bond indissoluble, and the civil laws had declared it might be broken, they would be contradictory to each other.

Sometimes the regulations made by the civil laws, with respect to marriage, are not absolutely necessary; such are those established by the laws, which, instead of annulling the marriage, only punish those who contract it.

Amongst the Romans, the Papian law declared those marriages illegal which had been prohibited, and yet only subjected them to a penalty* ; but a Senatus Consultum, made at the instance of the emperor Marcus Antoninus, declared them void; there then no longer subsisted any such thing as a marriage, wife, dowry, or husband. The civil laws determine according to circumstances: sometimes they are most attentive to repair the evil; at others, to prevent it.

[* ]See what has been said on this subject, in book xxiii. chap. 21. in the relation they bear to the number of inhabitants.

[]See Law 16. ff. de ritu nuptiarum; and Law 3. sect. 1. also Digest. de donationibus inter virum & uxorem.