others who married those who had not complied with these formalities,
were solely for the purpose of providing a convenient and certain proof
of marriage, should it be afterwards necessary to establish that fact
by evidence, rather than to invalidate marriages which would otherwise
be legal.

[Sidenote: Dissolution of marriage.]

Having established the marriage relation, it could only be dissolved by
death or divorce granted by act of parliament, or, in this country after
the declaration of independence, by act of legislature. No absolute
divorce could be granted for any cause arising after the marriage, but a
separation might be decreed in case of adultery by either party.

[Sidenote: Subjection of married women.]

By the rules of the common law, the person and property of women were
under the absolute control of their husbands. The maxim, _Uxor non est
juris, sed sub potestate viri_, "a wife is not her own mistress, but is
under the power of her husband," is but an expression of the actual
legal status of a woman from the instant she entered the matrimonial
state, until released therefrom by death or divorce.

[Sidenote: Legally dead.]

Marriage was the act by which she ceased to have a legal existence, by
which, we are told, her very being became incorporated or consolidated
into that of her husband. From the time her identity became thus merged,
she was presumed by the law to be under the protection and influence of
her husband, to be so absolutely and entirely one person with him, that