The mutual consent of the parties themselves, followed by cohabitation, was sufficient to constitute a legal marriage, without the observance of any formalities. The formal ceremonies provided by statute for the celebration of marriages, and the penalties imposed upon clergymen and others who married those who had not complied with these formalities, were solely for the purpose of providing a convenient and certain proof of marriage, should it be afterwards necessary to establish that fact by evidence, rather than to invalidate marriages which would otherwise be legal. [Sidenote: Dissolution of marriage.] Having established the marriage relation, it could only be dissolved by death or divorce granted by act of parliament, or, in this country after the declaration of independence, by act of legislature. No absolute divorce could be granted for any cause arising after the marriage, but a separation might be decreed in case of adultery by either party. [Sidenote: Subjection of married women.] By the rules of the common law, the person and property of women were under the absolute control of their husbands. The maxim, _Uxor non est juris, sed sub potestate viri_, "a wife is not her own mistress, but is under the power of her husband," is but an expression of the actual legal status of a woman from the instant she entered the matrimonial state, until released therefrom by death or divorce. [Sidenote: Legally dead.] Marriage was the act by which she ceased to have a legal existence, by which, we are told, her very being became incorporated or consolidated into that of her husband. From the time her identity became thus merged, she was presumed by the law to be under the protection and influence of her husband, to be so absolutely and entirely one person with him, that she had henceforth no life in law apart from his. [Sidenote: Unity of person.] The legal fiction of the unity of the persons of husband and wife dates back to feudal times, and may, perhaps, have been a necessity of the age and of the peculiar social and political systems of that period. Like many another law having its inception in a sincere desire to secure the greatest good to the greatest number, and apparently necessary for that purpose at the period of social development which gave it birth, it existed for centuries after it had ceased to result in any benefit or afford any protection, and after the reason for its being had passed away and been forgotten. [Sidenote: Power of husband.]