One tax was greatly increased, namely, the excise tax upon all alcoholic liquors, and this was made a part of the revenue of the municipalities instead of the state, thus compensating the municipalities for the loss of the tax on merchandise. Despite the temperate habits of the Cuban people, the very general consumption of some form of alcoholic drink made this impost amount to a considerable sum. A matter which urgently needed reform, but which unfortunately was reformed with more zeal than diplomacy, caused much dissension in that first year of American administration. That was the marriage law. Under Spanish government marriage was held to be exclusively a function, indeed, a sacrament, of the Roman Catholic church, and could not legally be performed by any other authority; though in later years there had been made a provision for the civil marriage of non-Catholics. But since to resort to the latter meant to incur a certain social reproach, few couples ever availed themselves of it. Of course loyal members of the church could not do so, the religious ceremony being imperative for them. With the departure of the Spanish government from the island a complete separation of church and state occurred, and it was held imperative to provide a new law of marriage. The old system had become odious, it may be explained, because of the large fees which many ecclesiastics charged for performance of the ceremony, and because, on account of those fees, many couples among the poorer elements of the population, decided to dispense with the marriage ceremony altogether; a practice not conducive to social order, and frequently causing serious embarrassment and litigation over the inheritance of property. Unfortunately in trying to reform the system the new government went too far toward the opposite extreme. The author of the new law was Senor Jose Antonio Gonzalez Lanuza, the Secretary of Justice, and it made civil marriage compulsory, though it permitted a supplementary religious ceremony at the pleasure of the parties. "Hereafter," it said, "only civil marriages shall be legally valid." It fixed the legal fee for marriages at one dollar.