Note 888 — Chapter XIV · OPTIONAL CIVIL OR ECCLESIASTICAL MARRIAGE IN THE MIDDLE COLONIES

Ibid., 762. Of course, the question as to whether the presence of a clergyman at the ceremony was essential to a valid marriage was not raised; and if it had been raised in 1885, the court might possibly have decided that it was requisite, in harmony with the judgment in the Queen v. Millis. History must, however, decide the other way. But compare the conclusion of Cook, "Mar. Cel. in the Col.," Atlantic, LXI, 361, who infers from this decision that "this 'common-law marriage,' falsely so-called—the 'free marriage' of the later Roman law, of the canon law, and of the Scotch law,—did not exist in New York (or, indeed, in any of the other colonies) prior to the Revolution."