not much more can be expected from the courts. According to the overwhelming weight of juridical opinion, to go farther in this way would be to legislate consciously through the bench. Besides "bench-made" law is always _ex post facto_. The only practical course is to create or further develop a sound popular sentiment in favor of proper social control of the marital relation; and then to express that sentiment in statutes whose terms are mandatory beyond the possibility of evasion. [657] Of course the statute of Porto Rico must be regarded as preventing, not abolishing, the common-law marriage. [658] 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. [659] Except, perhaps, in practically getting rid of the subtle doctrine of marriage _per verba de futuro cum copula_: see the decision in Starr _v._ Peck (1841), 1 HILL, _N. Y._, 270; EWELL, _Cases_, 403. _Cf._ Cheney _v._ Arnold (1857), 15 _N. Y._, 345; EWELL, 407-13; this being followed in Duncan _v._ Duncan, 10 _Ohio_, 181; but discarded in Port _v._ Port, 70 _Ill._, 484; and Peck _v._ Peck, 12 _R. I._, 484; 34 _Am. R._, 702. _Cf._ BISHOP, _Mar., Div., and Sep._, I, secs. 353-77, pp. 147-62; KENT, _Commentaries_, II, sec. 87 ff., pp. 119 ff. [660] COOK, "The Mar. Cel. in the U. S.," _Atlantic_, LXI, 528.