Note 1406 — Chapter X · RISE OF CIVIL MARRIAGE

Banns and license are unnecessary; while clandestine marriages of the "scandalous or infamous" variety are so unimportant as to call for no legislation. Bigamy and the hardships arising in difficulty of proof may be remedied, it is alleged, by a law merely providing for proper registration and making it a rule that the "legitimacy of children should never be questioned, after the death of their parents who lived together as husband and wife, and were generally reputed to be so."—Townshend, in Cobbett, loc. cit., 49, 50. Cf. the similar plan of Haldane, ibid., 40, 41.