Another objection to our present law of marriage has been frequently urged, and great use has been made of it to prejudice the minds of English members in favour of the proposed alteration. We have already shown that there is in reality no doubt of what constitutes a Scottish marriage; that parties so contracting know very well what they are about, and are fully sensible of the true nature of their obligations. If any doubt should by possibility exist, it can be set at rest by a simple form of process--a form, however, which is never resorted to, unless there has been gross intention to deceive on the one part, or a most unusual degree of imprudence on the other. But it is said that the possible existence of a private marriage may entail the most cruel of all injuries upon innocent parties--that it is easy for a man who has already contracted a private marriage, to present himself in the character of an unfettered suitor, and to enter into a second matrimonial engagement, which may be, at any moment, shamefully terminated by the appearance of the first wife. No ordinary amount of rhetoric has been expended in depicting the terrible consequences of such a state of things; the misery of the deceived wife, and the wrongs of the defrauded children, have, in their turn, been employed as arguments against the existing marriage law of Scotland. This is a most unfair mode of reasoning. Unless it can be shown, which we maintain it cannot, that the law of Scotland, with regard to matrimony, is so loose that a party may really be married without knowing it, the argument utterly fails. Without distinct matrimonial consent there is no marriage, and no one surely can be ignorant of his own intention and act upon an occasion of that kind. He may try to suppress proofs, but for all that he is married, and if, during the lifetime of the other party, he shall contract a second marriage, he has committed bigamy, and is guilty of a criminal offence. Lord Campbell, in his evidence, admits that the marriage law of Scotland has been perfectly well ascertained upon most points--that there can be no doubt what is, and what is not, a marriage; but that the real difficulty consists in getting at the facts. Armed with this testimony, we may fairly conclude that unintentional bigamy is impossible; but that bigamy, when it takes place, is the deliberate act of a party.