In Scotland, as in every country whose system of jurisprudence is based on the civil law, {244} marriage is dealt with as _a purely civil contract_; and its constitution may be established by the same proof as would establish any ordinary civil contract, viz. by writing, by the testimony of witnesses, or by the judicial confession of the parties. It is true, that, in deference to the natural feeling that the blessing of God should be invoked upon the constitution of a relation so important and so solemn, and from other considerations of public policy and morality, the law has prescribed that a "regular marriage" can be performed only by a clergyman, after due proclamation of the banns; and that it punishes an "irregular" constitution of the contract by fines and other penalties. But it never loses sight of the principle, that the contract is purely civil; and irregularity in point of _form_, though punishable, does not vitiate the contract, which is binding and valid if its _substance_ be proved, in the same way as any other contract may be proved. Such a contract is binding, if entered into in accordance with the _lex loci contractus_, although that law should differ from the law of the domicile of the parties. The sole privilege of the smith of Gretna Green consisted in his smithy being the nearest place to the English border, at which witnesses to the constitution of the contract could be obtained. Now-a-days, I suppose, a runaway couple, unable to hire a special train, would take the express; and I would advise them to take their tickets to Ecclefechan--the first Scotch station at which the express stops--and to confer on the station-master and porter there the dignity of high priests of Hymen: for they, or any other two witnesses you meet in Scotland, can help you to tie the knot as firmly as the Gretna smith. After what I have said, I need hardly add that these functionaries had no warrant for their certificate that their marriages were performed "according to the forms of the Church of Scotland." To those who look upon marriage as a purely civil contract, the mock ceremony at Gretna is a marriage; to those who look upon it as a sacrament, or who think that a religious ceremony affects its constitution in the slightest degree, a Gretna Green marriage is, in plain words, neither more nor less than a _legalised concubinage_; and, surely, I need not say, that the spouses in such a marriage, though, _quoad omnem civilem effectum_, on the same footing with persons regularly married _in facie ecclesiæ_, are not--in Scotland, at least--allowed to obtrude themselves into respectable society. So much for the constitution of the contract of marriage under the law of Scotland.