New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-12-21
EXPERIMENTS ON MARRIAGE.

EXPERIMENTS ON MARRIAGE.
A petition has been started in Syracuse, and
1--WE hear) very generally signed, asking our
new Legislature to repeal so much of recent
law as denounces penalties for the crime OF
Seduction, and in lieu thereof enact that the
unmarried father of any child, (both parents
being White shall, from the naked fact of such
paternity, be deemed and taken in law to be
the husband of the mother, and thenceforth
bound TO regard and support her as his wife,
just as though they had been married with
benefit of clergy OfcOurss, it is further pray
ed that every child, whether born in or out OF
wedlock, shall inherit. in common with all other
children, the property of both parents being
deemed their legal heir
The fact of widespread dissatisfaction with
the existing legal definitions and obligations Of
Marriage, is notorious. To our mind, they are
but a natural result of the sublimated Democ-
racy of our day, which chafes at every restraint
and insists on the widest possible impunity to
individual ccprice and individual appetite. We
esteem this tendency eminently anti-Social, and
regard it's more specious manifestations with
suspicion its more Characteristic with antip-
athy and adherence.
Such a law as is indicated above seems pal
pably calculated to degrade and discredit the
Marriage relation. The naked fact that its
projectors seek to confne its application to
White persons 1--WE presume they mean to those
Of like color) betrays its unsOundness and abb
surdity. If the principle it evolves be a sound
one, the limitation here suggested is plainly
unjustifable.
Marriage is honorable in ALL says an ApOs.
tie but il would have choked him to say it Of
such Marriage as is contemplated by the SYRIA
cuse project. Marriage as penalty, punish
ment, a substitute for fine and Imprisonment, we
could not recognize as an old acquaintance.
If it were even desirable to inhict it's obliga-
tons in the cases contemplated, we should in
sist on having separate name for this vista
ton Of the rigOrs of Law.
There are very many practical evils certain
to result from such an extension of the respOn.
sibilites Of Marriage which can hardly be sug-
gested with due regard to delicacy. Our novels
which depict the maneuvers of designing, I'm.
scrupulous mammas to secure advantageous
matches for their daughters, would derive ad-
ditional piquancy from the passage Of such an
act as is contemplated. And what the syria.
cuse lawgivers, who propose to base the obliga-
tons of this involuntary Marriage on the con-
tingency of offspring, would do with young
gentleman who should find himself compro-
missed with two or more damsels at once, their
petition does not not permit us to know.
Would they compel him to be husband for life
to them all!
We cannot confidently accuse the legal pro-
fession of originating this memorial, and yet
We never saw any thing better calculated to
bring grist to their mill. The lawsuits that
such an act would invite, to determine whether
A. B. is husband or not, and if be is, whether
c. d. or E. F. is bis wife, would require the
doubling of our Judicial force to give suitors
any chance for hearing during life.
We see just one admissible suggestion in
their memorial-that Of emitting all children
TO an equal inheritance in the estates of CON-
mon parent. They are in no sense response
bic for their parents errors and if any ought
to have larger share in the estate than others,
those who were forced to endure gnominy and
scorn, perhaps privation and ignorance also,
because Of parental transgression, should be
most favored But even here, it would be ne
cessary to proceed with the utmost caution, or
a wealthy man would have more children
charged upon him when dead than ever truly
belonged to him while living.
We wish the strong reasons for Marriage
as 1t Is-for its obligations, limitations and in.
Acknowledgements more generally set forth
from the Pulpit and through the Press than
they are. The habit Of regarding all ins,itu.