[Footnote 800: Even in Virginia civil marriages were frequent before the Revolution, though liable to penalty. For Maryland the view of the text as to the common-law contract was sustained in the case of Cheseldine _v._ Brewer, 1 Har. and McH., 152 (1739). This decision was, however, overruled in Denison _v._ Denison (1871), 35 _Md._, 361, 379, in which Justice Alvey says: "We think we are safe in saying that there has never been a time in the history of the state, whether before its independence of Great Britain or since, when some ceremony or celebration was not deemed necessary to a valid marriage. In the early days of the province, it was not absolutely necessary that a minister of religion should officiate,--a judge or magistrate could perform the ceremony--but still, in all cases, some formal celebration was required." Of course, the opinion of a judge long after the colonial era, not professing to be based on evidence, can have little weight in settling the present historical problem. Though the laws of the Maryland assembly, like those of Connecticut and Rhode Island (STORY, _Commentaries_, I, § 171), were not required to be submitted to the king for approval, it cannot be assumed that such laws could deprive a person of any liberty secured by the common law, but they might bestow greater privileges. _Cf._ BISHOP, _Mar., Div., and Sep._, I, § 416. A statute of North Carolina, in 1715, declared that the common law should be in force in that province (IREDELL, _Laws_, 1715, 18, 19; STORY, _op. cit._, I, § 142). Yet in this century it has been held that the common law of the state recognizes no marriage not according to the statutes; as to which statement, "the court observed in a subsequent case, 'we express no opinion.' But such, all agree, is not the common law of England."--BISHOP, _op. cit._, I, § 412; citing State _v._ Samuel, 2 Dev. and Bat., 177; and State _v._ Ta-cha-na-tah, 64 _N. C._, 614. Several decisions of the courts of Tennessee have regard to the colonial laws of North Carolina, the parent commonwealth, and on the whole sustain the view that informal marriages were good despite the statutes. In the case of Bashaw _v._ the State, 1829 (1 Yerger, 177-97), which gives a history of North Carolina matrimonial legislation for the period 1715-1829, it was held that the celebration must be according to the statutes which had superseded the common law. The same view is taken two years later in Grisham _v._ the State (2 Yerger, 589, 592). But in Andrews _v._ Page, 1868 (3 Heiskell, _Tenn. Reports_, 653, 667), the opposite position is taken, the court holding rightly that the acts of 1741 and 1778 do not expressly prohibit the common-law marriage.