If Peter the Great had lived long enough he would probably have given Russia a regular code such as Napoleon bequeathed to France, but he was too busy during his career with wars, travels and social reforms. The Emperor Nicholas I. is entitled to the credit of being the first Russian sovereign to direct the compilation of anything approaching a classified legal code, and under his authority the jurist Speransky collected together some forty volumes. This code, as revised from time to time, is the best exposition obtainable of the law of the Empire. Its first article, however, qualifies the entire code by recognizing the Tsar's privilege of altering or setting aside any law of the realm at will. Until recently the first lesson for the Russian law student to learn was expressed in the doctrine: _Quod principi placuit, legis habet vigorem_. "The sovereign's pleasure has the force of law." Many reforms have of late years been worked in Russian law and judicial procedure, but in these matters Russia is still a long way off from justifying the belief expressed by Count Mouravieff, that this country has a civilizing mission such as no other nation of the world, not only in Asia, but also in Europe. Such benefits as can be derived from the law are still more for the privileged classes than for the great body of the people, and the point has not yet been reached of substituting judicial trials for ecclesiastical in matrimonial causes. The regulations concerning marriage and divorce fall within the province of the clergy and the ecclesiastical courts, except that the civil tribunals have jurisdiction over annulment and divorce for the _Raskolniken_, or "Old Believers," and for the Baptists and some other dissenters from the State Church of Russia. With the exceptions noted, the regulations of each form of religious belief, including Mohammedanism and other non-Christian beliefs, are endorsed by the State as the law for the adherents of that belief. The civil courts, however, have jurisdiction over the civil effects of marriage and divorce, and the State law contains certain provisions binding on the adherents of all religious confessions. The regulations governing the Roman Catholics are, in general, those of the canon law and those governing the German Lutherans are those of the old Protestant common law of Germany. We shall consider the special regulations affecting the Jews in a separate division of this chapter. MARRIAGE.--A man reaches marriageable age upon the completion of his eighteenth year and a woman upon the completion of her sixteenth year; natives of Transcaucasia, however, may marry at the completion of the fifteenth and thirteenth years, respectively. A marriage cannot take place without the free and mutual consent of the principals. The exercise of any kind of compulsion is forbidden to parents or guardians.