Note 239 — OF MARRIAGE.
Reading edition
If either of the parties be under the age of twenty-one, they cannot by their own consent alone contract marriage; they must have either an express consent in case of licence, or an implied consent by the banns not having been forbidden; but as banns may be and frequently are improperly published in churches far distant from the actual residence of the parties, their parents, or guardians, this precaution of the legislature offers but a precarious safeguard against clandestine marriages.