But while both the temporal and spiritual courts recognized the validity of marriages based alone upon mutual consent, followed by a physical union, the religious ceremony in an early day, was held essential to endow the wife with the right to the husband’s land. Bracton tells us that the endowment can only be made at the church door, for while the marriage may be contracted elsewhere, the bride can only be endowed at the door of the church.[49] This rule, however, was of course inconsistent with the recognition of the validity of the marriage and both the ecclesiastic and temporal courts went to the extreme limit to legitimize the offspring of marriages, not the result of a wilful criminal relation. Retroactive and putative marriages were recognized, both in the temporal and ecclesiastical courts, when the legitimacy of children depended upon such a construction and in cases where the parents had married within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity, or if a woman, in good faith, married a man already married and believed that he was single and had children by him, the children would be held legitimate and capable of inheriting, under the law.[50] The courts, in order to legitimize the offspring of doubtful marriages, went the full limit, in upholding the marriage relation from a very early day, but the consort who abandoned her husband to dwell with her adulterer, was written beyond the pale of the law. By an old statute, of the reign of Edward I., a woman who eloped and abode with her adulterer was punished by a loss of dower[51] and this statute was enforced, in the case of William and Margaret Paynel, which originated in 1302.[52] These parties petitioned the king for dower that was due the woman, as the widow of her first husband, John de Camoys. It was charged that Margaret had eloped with William and committed adultery with him. In answer, William and Margaret produced a solemn charter, whereby her first husband had “given, granted, released and quit-claimed” the said Margaret to William. They also introduced evidence to the effect that after they went to live together they had been charged with adultery in the court Christian, and that by the oath of compurgators, among whom were married and unmarried ladies and a prioress, they had successfully met this charge and they offered to leave to the decision of a jury the issue whether or not they were guilty of adultery in living together. The court, however, in a lengthy decree, held that the facts on their face constituted adultery and since no reconciliation of the first husband was shown, the woman was not entitled to dower, under this statute.[53]