t he did not act intelligently, he could avoid his
marriage.

A male at common law can marry at fourteen, a female at twelve. By
statute a later date, twenty-one for males and eighteen for females
has been fixed in many states. The right to disaffirm a marriage on
the ground of non-age, unlike the parties to a contract, applies to
both parties.

In this country marriage is regulated largely by the states, though a
movement has been started to make marriage and divorce a matter of
national regulation.

As marriages are of higher character than other contracts relating to
the ordinary dealings of men, even those that are prohibited by law
are for reasons of public policy not always void. They are therefore
not void, simply because the formalities prescribed by statute in
obtaining the license and solemnizing the marriage have not been
observed, when the parties afterward live together like other married
people.

A marriage ceremony is not void though performed by one outside his
jurisdiction, or not having a license obtained at the proper place.
Persons who improperly grant licenses and solemnize marriages may
themselves suffer legally, but their wrongful action cannot be
visited on others. The principle still prevails in most states that a
marriage which is good by the common law, though contrary to statutory
forms unless there is an express prohibition, is a valid marriage. In
a few states a common law marriage is invalid.

A marriage that is valid by the law of the state where it was made, is
valid everywhere. Nevertheless, the courts have great difficulty in
applying the principle. Suppose that the resident of a state, for the
purpose of evading its marriage laws, should go into another state and
have the marriage solemnized, and then return, is the marriage valid
in that state? No, but to lessen the rigor of the rule, the courts
hold that both parties must have intended to evade the law, if,
therefore, one of them was innocent the marriage was valid.

After marriage the husband's domicile becomes that of his wife, and
her refusal to follow him without good cause, would be in law a
desertion. It is said that a promise before marriage not to take her
away from her mother and friends will not justify her in refusing to
go with him. If, however, she had immediately after marriage,
determined to separate from him and to take legal steps to that end,
she could legally remain.

A married woman by the common law is