Many questions may arise on the first point; for, though the Act of the 26th of _George_ 2. _cap._ 33. commonly called the Marriage Act, has fixed the age of twenty-one years[239] as the period in both sexes before which this contract cannot legally take effect by the mere act of the parties. Other points may still arise as to the age at which marriage may take place, the statuable precautions of banns or licence having been complied with. According to the canon law and the doctrines of precontracts (now exploded)[240] or rather from the abuse of both, infants of the most tender age were formerly betrothed to each other; and this precontract they were considered as bound to complete and perform when they should arrive at a sufficient age; the civil law indeed says,[241] “though spousals are not limited to any age, yet infancy is not esteemed in the calculation: _id est si non sint minores quam septem annis_”[242]. Our law however appears, and with good reason, to have fixed upon the supposed age of puberty, fourteen for boys, and twelve for girls, as the earliest period at which marriage should be contracted. Yet even these relative ages, though somewhat too tender either for public policy or domestic happiness, are not invariably the times of puberty; in some instances it is anticipated, in many delayed. If therefore the law of England, in this as in most other matters of Ecclesiastical jurisdiction, follows the Canon law, which “pays a greater regard to the constitution than the age of the parties; for if they are _habiles ad matrimonium_ it is a good marriage, whatever their age may be,” it becomes an important medical question to consider who are and who are not _habiles ad matrimonium_ in respect of nonage. It is equally, or perhaps more important, that the parties be _habiles ad consensus_, in respect of mental capacity; for though in an old case _Style_ and _West_, 3 _James_ 1. _Roll. Ab._ 357, it was held that an idiot _a nativitate_, might consent to marriage[243], by later resolutions it has been determined otherwise, because consent is necessary to marriage, and idiots are not capable of consenting to any thing, so also of a lunatic, unless the marriage was in a lucid interval. But as it may be difficult to prove the exact state of the party’s mind at the actual celebration of the nuptials, therefore the statute 15 _Geo._ 2. _c._ 30. has provided that the marriage of lunatics and persons under phrenzies, (if found[244] lunatics under a commission, or committed to trustees by any Act of Parliament) before they are declared of sound mind by the Lord Chancellor or the majority of such trustees, shall be totally void. 2 _Burn. Eccl. Law_ 416. 1 _Bl. Com._ 439. _Collinson on Lunatics_, 554.