Note 1397 — Chapter X · RISE OF CIVIL MARRIAGE
Reading edition
The bill is to bring upon the people all these evils "that my young lord, or the young rich squire, forsooth, may not be induced to marry his mother's maid, or a neighbouring farmer's daughter, who may probably make him a better wife and render him more happy, than if he had married the richest heiress in the kingdom; or that young miss may not run away with her father's footman, who may make her a better husband, than any lord or rich squire she, or even her father, could have chosen." Such marriages "are rather an advantage than a prejudice to the community."—Nugent, in Cobbett, loc. cit., 20; cf. Fox, ibid., 71.