SCOTCH MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE BILL.
461
the most important of all obligations, and to bestow upon bis issue by a designing, and possibly a profligate, woman, the inheritance of the highest honours and the most ample possessions. But with this question we have, at present, nothing to do. Upon the Scotch law I do not ask your Lordships to make any change. Whether or not it may he founded upon sound principles I do not at all inquire. Nor do I stop to examine the consequences which may have flowed from it, further than to observe, that a law may be adapted to one kind of society, which in another would be mischievous ; while, on the other hand, the manners of a community may have become adapted to the law ; so that we should not he justified in condemning the Scotch marriage-law merely because it would he wholly inapplicable to this country. The Scotch are exceedingly attached to this branch of their jurisprudence ; and I am very far from proposing that it should he altered. But it is quite another thing, to permit the difference that exists in their marriagelaw to open a door for the evasion of ours. Whoever holds that the English law upon this subject is right for England, and the Scotch law right for Scotland, must admit that nothing can he more absurd than permitting the one law to he made the means of committing frauds upon the other,—permitting, in truth, the provisions of the one system to make those of the other a nullity:—and even he who regards the English law as had for England, must desire that it should be altered by the Legislature, so as to be amended for the benefit of all the people, instead of being allowed to bind only those who reside in certain parts of the country, and who cannot afford the expense of evading it. Only see how the matter at present stands. A minor cannot marry