Jenks's Portland Gazette

FRENCH MARRIAGE.

THE following are the regulations respecting the marriage contract which the new French government seem disposed to adopt in their civil order. They appear to be grounded on the custom: some time back followed in the commune of Paris.

A man is not to marry before the age of fifteen years complete, nor a woman before the age of thirteen. Children cannot contract matrimonial engagements without the consent of father & mother until they have attained their 25th year; but in case where parents disagree, the consent of the father is sufficient. If one of the parents be dead or under an incapacity of declaring his pleasure, the consent of the survivor is sufficient, even tho'he should have contracted a second marriage, unless the said marriage shall have been contracted after a divorce; in that case, the family is assembled to deliberate upon the consent.

In cases of death, the father and mother are replaced by the grandfathers and grandmothers; in cases of equal number of votes, they are revised, and adjudged by a meeting of the family: If there be neither father nor mother, nor grandfather nor grandmother, or should they be in a state of incapacity to express their decision. the minors of 25 years cannot contract matrimony till after they have solicited the consent of the family lawfully convened; should the meeting determine upon the negative, the ceremony is to be suspended for three months, after which the family is to meet again: and whatever may then be their decision, the parties may proceed to the marriage act, if he or she who solicits the consent, should persist in his or their wish, and have attained the age of 21 years. A natural son cannot marry before the age of 25, unless with the consent of his father and mother, or with that of the survivor of one of them. An uncle may marry his niece; a nephew his aunt; and a cousin his cousin.

Marriage in a direct line is prohibited between all ascendants and descendants in a collateral line, between children of the same father or of the same mother, between adopted children, and those that are natural or legitimate. A marriage is deprived of the succession of civil effects, when one of the contracting parties is attacked, at the time of the marriage solemnity, with a disorder, of which he dies during the following 24 hours. The fathers and mothers, on their default; the grandfathers and grandmothers, or persons married to one of the parties may put opposition to the marriage. The other relations are not admissible but where an assembly of the family is judged necessary.

The married couple, or one of them may claim annulling of the marriage. 1. If one of the contracting parties has not attained the age requisite for a marriage contract. 2. If the two contracting parties have not given their free and formal consent, that is, if it was given to a ravisher before he had recovered his liberty; or if one of the parties has yielded to a degree of violence, sufficient to intimidate a well constituted mind, or if there be a mistake respecting the person which one of the parties had an intention of marrying. 3. If the marriage had taken place before the legal dissolution of a former marriage. 4. If one of the contracting parties lay under an accusation which condemned him or her to a civil death.

The parties are not admissible in the first case, if the woman has conceived before the age of 13; and in the two latter suppositions of the 2d case, if there be two children living at the same time, a claim is made to annul the marriage, or if, tho there should be no children, the parties have cohabited together for five years complete.

The parties, by virtue of the marriage act alone, contract the obligation of nourishing, supporting, educating, and establishing, their children, in proportion to their means. By a reciprocal duty, children are bound to furnish their fathers and mothers with subsistence in case of need. The wife is subject to the same civil laws to which the husband is subject.

The husband may oblige his wife to follow him whithersoever he may choose to fix his residence and abode.

The wife, even though separated in property from her husband, neither can grant, alienate, or accept a legacy, without the written consent of her husband, or the actual assent of her husband to the act. The wife, if she carries on a mercantile business, may, without her husband's consent, give obligations for what regards her trade; and in such cases, she involves her husband in the obligation, if there be a commercial partnership between them. A woman cannot contract a new marriage till after a full year from the dissolution of her preceding marriage.