[594] On this doctrine, with the leading cases, see KENT, _Commentaries_ (14th ed., Boston, 1896), II, secs. 87 ff., pp. 119 ff.; REEVE, _The Law of Husband and Wife_ ("Domestic Relations"), 250-58; GREENLEAF, _Law of Evidence_ (16th ed., Boston, 1899), II, secs. 460-64, pp. 441-47; and especially BISHOP, _Mar., Div., and Sep._, I, secs. 409 ff., pp. 176 ff. The doctrine that an informal marriage _per verba de praesenti_ is valid unless expressly declared void by "words of nullity" in the statute is not an invention of the American courts. It is the doctrine maintained by the English judges previous to the decision in the case of the Queen _v._ Millis in 1844; and from the evidence already presented[595] it seems almost certain, if indeed it be not demonstrated, that it was the accepted doctrine in the English colonies. According to an able writer, the colonial statutory "system" entirely superseded the common law; and this system has been "destroyed" by a revolution, effected through the decisions of the American courts, "which has introduced into our law much of the insecurity, the irreverence, the license, of the Middle Ages," our common law today being "the canon law that existed prior to the Council of Trent."[596] No doubt our common-law marriage is thoroughly bad, involving social evils of the most dangerous character; and no doubt the colonial legislative system was a remarkable advance upon anything which had elsewhere appeared. But the common-law marriage was not introduced by the American judges; nor is it historically correct to say that in the English colonies it had been entirely supplanted by legislation, however admirable in its intent and quality that legislation may have been. For the colonial period, as elsewhere shown, the relation of the statutes governing marriage to the common law can only partially be determined from the court records. In the southern colonies the judicial history of the subject is almost a complete blank.[597] Other evidence, however, is available. Only during the thirty-five years between 1661 and 1696 does any statute of Virginia expressly declare a marriage void if not contracted according to its provisions. The new law of 1696, enacted in place of the statute of 1661/2, which was then repealed, declares that "many great and grievous mischeifes ... dayly doe arise by clandestine and secret marriages to the utter ruin of many heirs and heiresses;" and yet it is significant that the words of nullity contained in the earlier act are omitted. Indeed, by the terms of this law the validity of an irregular marriage thereafter contracted by a female between the ages of twelve and sixteen is clearly implied, although she is to be severely punished.[598] Dissenters had refused to marry according to the statute which they regarded as oppressive; and their resistance, perhaps with a feeling that the act of 1661/2 was itself invalid as being in conflict with the English common law, may have led to