h--in the eyes of a large part of Christendom--more than neutralized
the soundness of its original conception.[331]

In England, where from the ninth century, marriage was generally
accepted by the ecclesiastical and temporal powers as
indissoluble, Canon law was, in the main, established as in the
rest of Christendom. There were, however, certain points in which
Canon law was not accepted by the law of England. By English law
a ceremony before a priest was necessary to the validity of a
marriage, though in Scotland the Canon law doctrine was accepted
that simple consent of the parties, even exchanged secretly,
sufficed to constitute marriage. Again, the issue of a void
marriage contracted in innocence, and the issue of persons who
subsequently marry each other, are legitimate by Canon law, but
not by the common law of England (Geary, _Marriage and Family
Relations_, p. 3; Pollock and Maitland, loc. cit.). The Canonists
regarded the disabilities attaching to bastardy as a punishment
inflicted on the offending parents, and considered, therefore,
that no burden should fall on the children when there had been a
ceremony in good faith on the part of one at least of the
parents. In this respect the English law is less reasonable and
humane. It was at the Council of Merton, in 1236, that the barons
of England rejected the proposal to make the laws of England
harmonize with the Canon law, that is, with the ecclesiastical
law of Christendom generally, in allowing children born before
wedlock to be legitimated by subsequent marriage. Grosseteste
poured forth his eloquence and his arguments in favor of the
change, but in vain, and the law of England has ever since stood
alone in this respect (Freeman, "Merton Priory," _English Towns
and Districts_). The proposal was rejected in the famous formula,
"Nolumus leges Angliae mutare," a formula which merely stood for
an unreasonable and inhumane obstinacy.

In the United States, while by common law subsequent marriage
fails to legitimate children born before marriage, in many of the
States the subsequent marriage of the parents effects by statute
the legitimacy of the child, sometimes (as in Maine)
automatically, more usually (as in Massachusetts) through special
acknowledgment by the father.

The appearance of Luther and the Reformation involve