5. This can only be explained by the rules current at the time regarding
spousals. The betrothal, or handfasting, was, in Massinger's time, a
ceremony that entailed very serious obligations upon the parties to it.
There were two classes of spousals--_sponsalia de futuro_ and _sponsalia
de praesenti_: a promise of marriage in the future, and an actual
declaration of present marriage. This last form of betrothal was, in
fact, marriage, as far as the contracting parties were concerned.[1] It
could not, even though not consummated, be dissolved by mutual consent;
and a subsequent marriage, even though celebrated with religious rites,
was utterly invalid, and could be set aside at the suit of the injured
person.

[Footnote 1: Swinburne, A Treatise of Spousals, 1686, p. 236. In England
the offspring were, nevertheless, illegitimate.]

The results entailed by _sponsalia de futuro_ were less serious.
Although no spousals of the same nature could be entered into with a
third person during the existence of the contract, yet it could be
dissolved by mutual consent, and was dissolved by subsequent _sponsalia
in praesenti_, or matrimony. But such spousals could be converted into
valid matrimony by the cohabitation of the parties; and this, instead of
being looked upon as reprehensible, seems to have been treated as a
laudable action, and to be by all means encouraged.[1] In addition to
this, completion of a contract for marriage _de futuro_ confirmed by
oath, if such a contract were not indeed indissoluble, as was thought by
some, could at any rate be enforced against an unwilling party. But
there were some reasons that justified the dissolution of _sponsalia_ of
either description. Affinity was one of these; and--what is to the
purpose here, in England before the Reformation, and in those parts of