Laws of Marriage and Rings

The canon law is the basis of marriage throughout Europe, except so far as it has been altered by the municipal laws of particular States. An important alteration was made in the law of marriage in many countries by the decrees of the Council of Trent, held for the reformation of marriage. These decrees are the standing judgments of the Romish Church; but they were never received as authority in Great Britain. Still the ecclesiastical law of marriage in England is derived from the Roman pontiffs. It has been traced as far back as 605, soon after the establishment of Christianity there.

Marriages in the Episcopal Church are governed by the Rubric. This term signifies a title or article in certain ancient common-law books.

Rubrics also denote the rules and directions given at the beginning and in the course of the liturgy, for the order and manner in which the several parts of the office are to be performed.

Statutes of the English Parliament have confirmed the use of the rubric inserted in the part of the Common Prayer Book relating to the marriage ceremony. But prior to the British marriage acts, a case arose where no ring was used according to the Common Prayer Book. A then Chief Justice (C. J. Pemberton) was inclined to think it a good contract, there being words of a present contract repeated after a person in orders.

The rubric directs that the man shall give unto the woman a ring, laying the same upon the book; and the priest, taking the ring, shall deliver it unto the man to put it on the fourth finger of the woman's left hand. And he says, "With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship and with all my worldly gifts I thee endow." These words are best explained by the rubric of the 2d of Edward VI., which ran thus: "The man shall give unto the woman a ring and other tokens of spousage, as gold or silver, laying the same upon the book; and the man, taught by the priest, shall say, 'With this ring I thee wed, this gold and silver I thee give;'" and then these words, "With all my worldly goods I thee endow," were delivered with a more peculiar significancy. Here the proper distinction is made, the endowment of all his goods means granting the custody or key and care of them. It will be seen that the word "endow" is kept apart from the positive gift of pieces of gold and silver. It has been said that the ancient pledge was a piece of silver worn in the pocket; but marriage being held sacred, it was thought more prudent to have the pledge exposed to view by making it into a ring worn upon the hand.

The Christian marriage-ring appears, in its substance, to have been copied from the Roman nuptial ring. It was, according to Swinburn, of iron, adorned with an adamant; the metal hard and durable, signifying the durance and perpetuity of the contract. Howbeit, he says, it skilleth not at this day what metal the ring be of, the form of it being round and without end doth import that their love should circulate and flow continually.