Note 658 — Chapter XVIII · PROBLEMS OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY

Quoted by Cook, "The Mar. Cel. in the U. S.," Atlantic, LXI, 526. On the frauds perpetrated under the guise of the common-law marriage see also the opinion of Judge Pryor of New York: quoted by Richberg, Incongruities of the Divorce Laws, 61, 62. "It is singular," said Chief Justice Gilchrist in 1848, "that the most important of all human contracts, on which the rights and duties of the whole community depend, requires less formality for its validity than the conveyance of an acre of land, a policy of insurance, or the agreements which the statute of frauds requires should be in writing."—Dumbarton v. Franklin, 19 N. H., 264, 265.