[1] It is doubtless true, as anthropologists have pointed out, that
in the history of the race "marriage is rooted in the family rather
than the family in marriage" (WESTERMARCK: _History of Human
Marriage_, p. 22); but in that conscious experience of the individual
with which law and ethics are especially concerned, this relationship
is reversed, and the family originates in marriage (see FAMILY, and
allied headings).
[2] The restrictions are enumerated in the following lines:--
Error, Conditio, Votum, Cognatio, Crimen,
Cultus, Disparitas, Vis, Ordo, Ligamen, Honestas,
Aetas, Affinis, si Clandestinus et Impos,
Raptave sit mulier nec parti reddita tutae.]
[3] Canon lxi. Aut qui ex propria consanguinitate aliquam, aut quam
consanguineus habuit ... duceret uxorem ... incestos esse non
dubitamus (Mansi _Conc._ viii. p. 336). According to the canon law
"affinity" is the relation between two persons of whom one has had
commerce, licit or illicit, with a relation of the other.
[4] The civil law counts, in the direct line, as many degrees as
there are generations between the parties; e.g. the son is in regard
to his father in the 1st degree, the grandson in the 2nd, and vice
versa. In the collateral line it computes degrees by generations,
i.e. from one of the relations to the common ancestor, without
including him or her, and from him or her back to the other relation;
e.g. two brothers are in the 2nd degree of relationship to one
another, uncle and nephew in the 3rd, cousins-german in the 4th.
The canon law, which in this case derives from the old Germanic law,
has the same computation as regards the direct line. In the case of
collateral relations, however, it differs, having two rules: (1) In
the case of _equal line_--i.e. when the collaterals are equally
removed from the common progenitor, it reckons the same number of
degrees between the collaterals as between one of them and the
progenitor; e.g. brothers are related in the 1st degree, while
cousins-german are related in the 2nd degree because they are two
generations from the common grandfather. (2) In the case of _unequal
line_--i.e. when the collaterals are unequally removed from the
common ancestor, the degree of their relationship is that of the most
remote from the common progenitor; e.g. uncle and niece are related
in the 2nd degree--i.e. that of the niece to the grandfather.
The civil computation was furiously attacked by canonists as tending
to laxity (see Peter Damianus, "De parentelae gradibus," in Migne,
_Patrol. Lat._ cxlv. 191, &c.).
[5] Innocent III. also decided that the husband's relations were not
related to those of the wife, and vice versa, thus establishing the
rule that "affinity does not breed affinity" (_affinitas non parit
affinitatem_).
[6] This is fixed by the canon law at 14 for a male, 12 for a female.
If, however, owing to the precocious physical development of a girl,
the marriage has been consummated before she has reached this age, it
cannot be nullified.
[7] It is maintained that no pope has ever given a dispensation for
such a marriage. Such a case seems, however, to be narrated by
Ordericus Vitalis (_Hist. eccles._ viii. 23; ed. A. le Prévost,
Paris, 1838-1855, t. iii. p. 408; ed. A. Duchesne, 1619, 704 B).
Robert Mowbray, earl of Northumberland, had only been married to Maud
de Laigle three months when he was condemned to perpetual
imprisonment for rebellion against King William Rufus. After
describing her forlorn state Orderic continues: "Nec ipsa eo vivente,
secundum legem Dei, alteri nubere legitime valebat. Tandum, permissu
Paschalis Papae (II.), cui res, a curiosis enucleata, patuit, post
multos dies Nigellus de Albineo ipsam uxorem accepit." This may mean
no more, of course, than that the curiosi "untied the knot" by
discovering an impediment--the usual expedient in such cases. In any
case the fact that Nigel de Albini, in his turn, soon afterwards
obtained a "divorce" from her on the ground that her first husband
was his relative by consanguinity, hardly points to a strict view of
the sanctity of the marriage tie.
[8] The customary rule for more than three centuries after the
Council of Trent was that male children followed the religion of the
father, female children that of the mother. On the general subject of
the attitude of the Church towards mixed marriages see O. D. Watkins,
_Holy Matrimony_, pp. 468 et seq. For the Roman Catholic view see "An
Instruction on Mixed Marriages" in Bishop Ullathorne's _Eccl.
Discourses_ (London, 1876).
[9] Among the "errors" denounced by Pope Pius IX. in the Syllabus of
1864 is lxvi.: "Matrimonii sacramentum non est, nisi quid contractui
accessorium ab eoque separabile, ipsumque sacramentum in una tantum
nuptiali benedictione situm est." This condemns the attempts of
certain canonists (e.g. Melchior Cano) to distinguish between the
_contractus naturalis_ and _sacramentalis_. This view, which was
first advanced by the jurist and theologian Johann Gropper
(1502-1559) at the council of Cologne (1536), and gained support
especially in France, makes the "matter" of the sacrament the consent
of the parties, the "form" the prayers and benedictions, the
"minister" the priests (see e.g. "Du sacrament de mariage" in vol. v.
of the _Dissertationes selectae_ of Petrus de Marca, d. 1662,
archbishop of Paris, Bamberg, 1789, p. 148).
[10] See the list of quotations from the early fathers given by
Watkins, _Holy Matrimony_, p. 93.
[11] The later teaching of the Eastern Church is laid down in the
Orthodox Confession of Peter Mogilas, patriarch of Kiev (1640). There
are three essentials for a Christian marriage: (1) suitable matter
([Greek: ulê harmodios]), i.e. a man and woman whose union no
impediment bars, (2) a duly ordained bishop or priest, (3) the
invocation of the Holy Ghost, and the solemnity of the formularies
([Greek: to eidos tôn logiôn]).
[12] A divorce _nisi_ does not enable the parties to marry until it
is made absolute.
[13] A marriage in which either of the parties is below the age of
consent is, however, said to be not absolutely void; if the parties
agree to continue together at the age of consent no new marriage is
necessary, but either of them may disagree and avoid the marriage.
[14] A complete list of the acts regulating the solemnization of
marriage or confirming marriages, which through some defect might be
void, will be found in Phillimore's _Ecclesiastical Law_ (2nd ed.
1895).
MARRUCINI, an ancient tribe which occupied a small strip of territory
round about Teate (mod. Chieti), on the east coast of Italy. It is first
mentioned in history as a member of a confederacy with which the Romans
came into conflict in the second Samnite War, 325 B.C., and it entered
the Roman Alliance as a separate unit at the end of that war (see
further PAELIGNI). We know something of the language of the Marrucini
from an inscription known as the "Bronze of Rapino," which belongs to
about the middle of the 3rd century B.C. It is written in Latin
alphabet, but in a dialect which belongs to the North Oscan group (see
PAELIGNI). The name of the city or tribe which it gives us is _touta
marouca_, and it mentions also a citadel with the epithet _tarincris_.
Several of its linguistic features, both in vocabulary and in syntax,
are of considerable interest to the student of Latin or Italic grammar
(e.g. the use of the subjunctive, without any conjunction, to express
purpose, a clause prescribing a sacrifice to Ceres being followed
immediately by _pacr si ut propitia sit_). The earliest Latin
inscriptions are of Ciceronian date.
The form of the name is of considerable interest, as it shows the suffix
-NO- superimposed upon the suffix -CO-, a change which probably
indicates some conquest of an earlier tribe by the invading Safini (or
Sabini, q.v.).
For further details as to Marrucine inscriptions and place-names see
R. S. Conway, _The Italic Dialects_, p. 253 seq. (R. S. C.)
MARRUVIUM, the chief town of the Marsi, on the E. bank of the Lacus
Fucinus, 4 m. S. of Cerfennia, on the Via Valeria. Though no doubt of
great antiquity, nothing is known of its history before the imperial
period; and none of the remains visible there (city walls, various
buildings within them, an amphitheatre, &c.), from which it seems to
have been a place of some importance, can be attributed to an earlier
date. On the site is the insignificant village of St Benedetto.
MARRYAT, FREDERICK (1792-1848), English sailor and novelist, was born at
Westminster on the 10th of July 1792. He was the grandson of Thomas
Marryat (physician, author of _The Philosophy of Masons_, and writer of
verse), and son of Joseph Marryat, agent for the island of Grenada, who
wrote pamphlets in defence of the Slave Trade. His mother was a
Bostonian of German extraction. Young Marryat distinguished himself as a
boy by frequently running away to go to sea; and at last, at the age of
fourteen, he was allowed to enter the navy. His first service was under
Lord Cochrane (afterwards tenth earl of Dundonald) in the famous
"Impérieuse," and no midshipman ever had a livelier apprenticeship to
the sea. During his two and a half years of service under Cochrane, the
young midshipman witnessed more than fifty engagements, and had much
experience of service on the coast of Spain in the early stage of the
Peninsular War, in the attack on the French squadron in the Roads (April
1809) and in the Walcheren expedition. Before the general peace of 1815
he had served in North America and the West Indies and gained a wide
knowledge of conditions of life on board ship under various commanders.
In 1815 he was promoted to the rank of commander. After holding various
commands he commissioned the "Larne," 20, for the East Indies and was
senior naval officer at Rangoon during the Burmese War from May to
September 1824. In the early part of the next year he commanded an
expedition up the Bassein River, in which Bassein was occupied and the
Burmese stores seized. His services were acknowledged by a nomination as
C.B. in 1826. He frequently received honourable mention for his
behaviour in action, and in 1818 he received the medal of the Humane
Society for "at least a dozen" gallant rescues. Marryat's honours were
not confined to gallant exploits. He adapted Sir Home Popham's code of
signals to a code for the Mercantile Marine, for which he was made
F.R.S. in 1819, and received the Legion of Honour from Louis Philippe in
1833. A pamphlet written to propose a substitute for the system of
impressment in 1822 is said to have offended King William IV.
Marryat brought ripe experience and unimpaired vivacity to his work when
he began to write novels. _Frank Mildmay, or the Naval Officer_, was
published in 1829, and _The King's Own_ followed in 1830. The novels of
the sea captain at once won public favour. The freshness of the new
field which was opened up to the imagination--so full of vivid lights
and shadows, light-hearted fun, grinding hardship, stirring adventure,
heroic action, warm friendships, bitter hatreds--was in exhilarating
contrast to the world of the historical romancer and the fashionable
novelist, to which the mind of the general reader was at that date given
over. He had an admirable gift of lucid, direct narrative, and an
unfailing fund of incident, and of humour, sometimes bordering on farce.
Of all his portraits of adventurous sailors, "Gentleman Chucks" in
_Peter Simple_ and "Equality Jack" in _Mr Midshipman Easy_ are the most
famous, but he created many other types which take rank among the
characteristic figures in English fiction. Marryat's first attempt was
somewhat severely criticized from an artistic point of view, and he was
accused of gratifying private grudges by introducing real personages too
thinly disguised; and as he attributed some of his own adventures to
Frank Mildmay he was rather shocked to learn that readers identified him
with that disagreeable character. _The King's Own_ was a vast
improvement, in point of construction, upon _Frank Mildmay_; and he went
on, through a quick succession of tales, _Newton Forster_ (1832), _Peter
Simple_ (1834), _Jacob Faithful_ (1834), _The Pacha of Many Tales_
(1835), _Japhet in Search of a Father_ (1836), _Mr Midshipman Easy_
(1836), _The Pirate and the Three Cutters_ (1836), till he reached his
high-water mark of constructive skill in _Snarley-yow, or the Dog Fiend_
(1837). The best of his books after this date are those written
expressly for boys, the favourites being _Masterman Ready_ (1841), _The
Settlers in Canada_ (1844), and _The Children of the New Forest _(1847).
Among his other works are _The Phantom Ship_ (1839); _A Diary in
America_ (1839); _Olla Podrida_ (1840), a collection of miscellaneous
papers; _Poor Jack_ (1840); _Joseph Rushbrook_ (1841); _Percival Keene_
(1842); _Monsieur Violet_ (1842); _The Privateer's Man_ (1844); _The
Mission, or Scenes in Africa_ (1845); _The Little Savage_ (1848-1849),
published posthumously; and _Valerie_, not completed (1849). His novels
form an important link between Smollett and Fielding and Charles
Dickens.
Captain Marryat had retired from the naval service in 1830, becoming
equerry to the duke of Sussex. He edited the _Metropolitan Magazine_
from 1832 to 1835, and some of his best stories appeared in that paper.
He spent a great part of his time in Brussels, where he was very
popular. He visited Canada during Papineau's revolt and the United
States in 1837, and gave a disparaging account of American institutions
in a _Diary_ published on his return to England. While at New York he
wrote a play, _The Ocean Waif, or Channel Outlaw_, which was acted, and
is forgotten. His versatility is further shown by the fact that he drew
rough caricatures and other sketches with some spirit. Some capital
snatches of verse are scattered throughout his novels, the best being
"Poll put her arms akimbo" in _Snarley-yow_, and the "Hunter and the
Maid" in _Poor Jack_. In 1843 he settled at Langham Manor, Norfolk. He
indulged in costly experiments in farming, so that in spite of the large
income earned by his books he was not a rich man. He died at Langham on
the 9th of August 1848, his death being hastened by news of the loss of
his son by shipwreck.
His daughter, Florence Marryat, herself a novelist, published his Life
and Letters in 1872. See also David Hannay, _Life of Marryat_ (1889).
(D. H.)
MARS, MLLE [ANNE FRANÇOISE HYPPOLYTE BOUTET] (1779-1847), French
actress, was born in Paris on the 9th of February 1779, the natural
daughter of the actor-author named Monvel [Jacques Marie Boutet,
1745-1812], and Mlle Mars Salvetat, an actress whose southern accent had
made her Paris _début_ a failure. Mlle Mars began her stage career in
children's parts, and by 1799, after the rehabilitation of the Comédie
Française, she and her sister (Mars _aînée_) joined that company, of
which she remained an active member for thirty-three years. Her beauty
and talents soon placed her at the top of her profession. She was
incomparable in _ingénue_ parts, and equally charming as the coquette.
Molière, Marivaux, Sedaine, and Beaumarchais had no more accomplished
interpreter, and in her career of half a century, besides many comedy
rôles of the older _répertoire_, she created fully a hundred parts in
plays which owed success largely to her. For her farewell performance
she selected Elmire in _Tartuffe_, and Silvia in _Jeu de l'amour et du
hasard_, two of her most popular rôles; and for her benefit, a few days
after, Célimène in _Le Misanthrope_ and Araminthe in _Les Femmes
savantes_. She retired in 1841, and died in Paris on the 20th of March
1847.
MARS (MAVORS, MARMAR, MARSPITER OR MASPITER), after Jupiter the most
important deity of the Roman state, and one who, unlike most Roman
deities, was never so much affected by foreign influences as to lose his
essentially Roman and Italian character. Traces of his worship are found
in all parts of central and southern Italy, in Umbria, Picenum, Samnium,
and in one or two Etruscan cities, as well as in Latium; and in several
communities, as we learn from Ovid (_Fasti_, 3.93 seq.), he gave his
name to a month, as at Rome to the first month of the old Roman year. We
know little of the character of his cult except at Rome, and even at
Rome it has been variously interpreted. He has been explained as a
sun-god, a god of wind and storm, a god of the year and a god of
vegetation; and he has been compared with Apollo by Roscher (_Apollo,
and Mars_, 1873, and in the article "Mars" in his _Lexicon of
Mythology_). But in historical times his chief function at Rome was to
protect the state in war, and it is as a god of war that he is known to
all readers of Roman literature. So entirely did this characteristic get
the better of all others, that his name came to be used as a synonym for
_bellum_; and in the latest and most careful of all accounts of the
Roman religion he is pronounced to have been from first to last a god of
war only (see Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus der Römer_, p. 129 seq.).
Until the time of Augustus Mars had but two temples at Rome, and both
are connected with warlike operations. One of these was originally only
an altar; it was in the Campus Martius, the exercising-ground of the
army. The other was outside the Porta Capena, the gate through which the
army marched on its way to campaigns to the south: here too each year
the Equites met in order to start in procession through the city (_Dion.
Hal._ 6. 13). Each of these sites was outside the _pomerium_, and this
has been explained to mean that the war-god "must be kept at a distance"
(Carter, _Religion of Numa_, p. 19). But in the heart of the city there
was a _sacrarium_ of Mars in the _regia_, originally the king's house,
in which the sacred spears of Mars were kept, and the fact that on the
outbreak of war the consul had to shake these spears, saying as he did
it, _Mars vigila_ ("Mars, wake up!"), shows that the god was believed to
reside here in some spiritual sense. If the spears moved of themselves,
the omen was bad and called for expiation. The _ancilia_, or sacred
shields, also formed part of this symbolic armoury of the Roman state:
they were carried in procession by the Salii (q.v.) or dancing
warrior-priests of Mars on several occasions during the month of March
up to the 23rd (_tubilustrium_), when the military trumpets (_tubae_)
were lustrated: and again in October to the 19th (_armilustrium_), when
both the _ancilia_ and the arms of the exercitus were purified and put
away for the winter. During the four months of the Italian winter the
worship of Mars seems at a standstill: we have no trace of it in the
calendar or in Roman literature. His activity is all in the warm season,
i.e. in the season of warfare. It is only at the end of February that we
find indications of the coming force of the Mars-cult in the month which
bears his name: Quirinus, who was probably the Mars of the community
settled on the Quirinal Hill, and had his twelve Salii corresponding to
those of the Palatine Mars, held his festival on the 17th of February,
and on the 27th was the first festival called Equirria, the second being
on the 14th of March. The name indicates horse-racing; horses were bred
and used at Rome chiefly for military purposes, and it is possible to
see here, as in the Equirria of the 14th of March, which we know was a
festival of Mars (W. W. Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 44), an exercise
of the war-horses, accompanied with sacrifice to Mars, preparatory to
the opening of the season of arms.
There is thus abundant evidence, based on the ancient calendars and the
features of the cult, that Mars was all along a deity especially
connected with warfare; and it is hardly necessary to add proof of a
less convincing kind, e.g. that the wolf, his special animal, is a
warlike beast, or that Nerio, a female deity who may anciently have been
coupled with him, seems to be etymologically "the strong one," or that
he is in legend the father of Romulus the warlike king and founder of
the Roman army, as compared with Numa, who instituted the Roman law and
religion. Enough has been said to show why Mars should have become
exclusively a god of war, even if the Roman state in its advance in the
conquest of other peoples had not given a continual impulse to this
aspect of the cult. In founding his famous temple of Mars Ultor (the
avenger of Caesar) in the Forum Augusti, Augustus gave a new turn to
this worship, and for a time it seems to have been a rival of that of
the Capitoline Jupiter (see Carter, _Religion of Numa_, p. 174 seq.),
and late in the period of the empire Mars became the most prominent of
the _di militares_ worshipped by the Roman legions.
There are however certain features in the Mars cult which make it
probable that this god was not entirely warlike in character. He seems,
in early times, at least, to have been also associated with agriculture;
and this is in harmony with the facts: (1) that the season of arms is
also the season of the growth, ripening and harvesting of the crops; (2)
that the early Roman community was an agricultural as well as a military
one, as is indicated in its religious calendar (Fowler, _Roman
Festivals_, p. 334). Thus Mars was invoked in the ancient hymn of the
Arval Brothers, whose religious duties had as their object to keep off
enemies of all kinds from crops and herds (Henzen, _Acta Fratr. Arv._ p.
26, 1874; Wordsworth, _Fragments_ and _Specimens of Early Latin_, p. 385
seq.); and his association here with the Lares (q.v.) proves that he is
not regarded as a war-god who could avert the raid of an enemy. Still
more striking is the invocation of Mars (with the cult-title Silvanus)
in the yearly lustration of his land by the Roman farmer (Cato, _De re
rustica_, 141), where it is not a human enemy, but disease, and all
unwholesome influences, which the god is besought to avert from the farm
and land, plantations and flocks. Three times the procession went round
the land, reciting prayers and driving the victims to be sacrificed,
viz. ox, sheep and pig (_suovetaurilia_), representing the farmer's most
valuable stock. We can hardly doubt that in the state ceremony of the
Ambarvalia, i.e. the _lustratio_ of the ager romanus in its earliest
form, the same god was invoked and the same ritual used (Fowler, _op.
cit._ p. 124 seq.). Again in the curious ritual of the sacrifice to Mars
of the October horse (Oct. 15: Fowler _op. cit._ 241), though the animal
was undoubtedly a war-horse, the head was cut off and decked with cakes,
as we are told (Paul. Diac. 220) _ob frugum eventum_. Even Quirinus, the
form of Mars worshipped in the Quirinal community, is not without an
association with agricultural perils, for it was his _flamen_ who
sacrificed the victims at the Robigalia on the 25th of April, when the
spirit of the mildew (robigus) was invoked to spare the corn (Ovid,
_Fasti_, 4. 901 seq.).
War and agriculture are thus the two factors of human life and
experience which are unquestionably prominent in the cult of Mars, and
explain his importance in a community like that of Rome: and there is no
need, in a short account of this religious conception, to determine
whether he was by origin a solar deity, a storm-god, or a
vegetation-spirit. His name gives us no help, its etymology is uncertain
(Roscher in _Mythological Lexicon_, s.v. "Mars," p. 2436). But we are
safe in conjecturing that Mars first came into prominence among the
Latins and kindred peoples in the course of their long struggle for
settlements among the mountains and forests of Italy. The clearing of
primeval woodland, the perils of agriculture from the raids of enemies
and of wild beasts, and from the ravages of disease, are all indicated
in the later Mars cult. The wolf and the woodpecker, denizens of the
forest, always remained his sacred animals, and were believed in Italian
legend to have led the Piceni and Hirpini to their places of settlement.
Mars is specially associated with the early foundation legends of Italy,
as was the case at Rome: and it was to him that the _ver sacrum_ was
dedicated, i.e. the entire produce of a spring, including the children
born then, who were eventually driven forth from their homes to form new
settlements elsewhere (Roscher in _Lex. Myth._ 2411). The fierce
character of the god, gained no doubt in this period of struggle and
danger, never entirely left him. Even in the hymn of the Fratres Arvales
he is the "fierce Mars" (_fere Mars_), and in the prayer of Cato's
farmer, though he has become "Father Mars," he is Silvanus (q.v.), the
dweller in the woodland which surrounded the agricultural clearing.
See Roscher in _Myth. Lex._ s.v. 2385 seq.; Wissowa, _Religion und
Kultus der Römer_, p. 129 seq.; Preller, _Römische Mythologie_, ed.
Jordan, i. 332 seq.; Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 33 seq.
(W. W. F.*)