Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-07-19
THE END OF CELEBRATED CASE.

The Hill-Sharon case is practically
ended, the Supreme Court having given it
its quietus The Court holds that the
findings of the Court below were not sus-
tanned by the testimony in the case and
it is therefore sent back for a new trial,
which will never be held, since the de-
cision of the appellate Court practically
settles the case on a showing that cannot
be made SO strong on a second hearing.
The decision is one of very great i'm
portance-in fact, as it relates to condi-
ton that lies at the very root and founda-
ton of society, it is difficult to conceive of
questions of a social character more
weighty. The evil of the decision OF the
Court below has been great, and its bane-
full influence was becoming daily more pro-
nounced. Since the decision of the Court
below many marriages, so called, have
been contracted by secret agreement and
without that solemnity or publicity that
the Court wisely holds to be essential to
the establishment of marriage proper.
The RECORD UNION Is not disposed to
boast of its own judgment, but it cannot
forbear in this instance calling attention
to the fact that years ago, when the posi-
ton of the prosecution was first made
known, it controverted it and repeatedly
declared, and with such force as it could
command, that the doctrine of secret mar
riage contracts was monstrous, and if main
tanned must result in reducing marriage to
concubinage and in placing it in the power |
OF any such persons as marry by secret |
contract to divorce themselves by simply |
destroying the unrecorded and unpub- |
lished contract of union. Such sys-
TEN would, of course prove utterly de- |
structiye of the whole system of marriage. !
and subject all children of such unholy |
unions to the stigma of bastardy Hear |
now what the Supreme Court saws, even
accepting all the plaintiff claims to be |
true, as to the contract and subsequent con- |
duct of the parties:
What marital rights has woman "assumedr
n
parent shame by asserting the honorable name |
of wife? What marital obligations of protec-
ton can man fulfill towards woman whose |
wifehood he publicly pudiates? And how,
can society enforce its rights in a relation of |
which it can have no knowledge and of the ex. |
istence of which it hes no grounds of suspicion |
AND what of the children If any, of such a /
marriage? Is there TO be no one whom they
eau call father" OF mother?" And what
possible protection could there be against fraud
ulent pretenses of marriages, made, perhaps |
for the first time after the deaths of alleged |
husbands or wives?
But, not satisfied with this expression, |
the Court adds words that will for all time |
constitute the condemnation of these secret |
unions even when accompanied by sexual |
intercourse:
Let us see TO what this would lead us II |
means supposing case, that where a couple |
are associated together in the mereJricious rela-
tion of man aud mistress and in the habit of |
meeting occasionally, solely for the purpose of |
gratifying their passions and while so con
nected, they consent, no matter how informally |
to marry and thereafter continue TO live pre-,
cisely as before, the fact that sexual inter
course, under such circumstances, follows after |
the consent amounts TO a mutual assumption of |
marital rights. duties and obligations and from
that time they are husband and wife. II means |
therefore, that. in some cases at least this re-
quirement OF the statute amounts to nothing 1t |
means that a couple may consent to marry may |
live precisely as if they are unmarried and their
relations meretricous to the world they may |
appear to be unmarried, and their children, If |
they have any, appear 10 be bastards ifthey |
conclude to violate their consent" to marriage |
they may go their ways; that they were hus |
band end wife cannot be proved, and their chill |
dren are baStards Indeed. We cannot so far re- |
feet upon the Law. making power as TO hold that |
such was their intention. The case before US |
presents the 81 -ongest possible argument against |
this construction: Take the respondents state |
ments TO be true in every respect. She entered |
into this contract believing il constituted legal
n n-al fronN ha
world her true relation II the defendant ana |
place herself IN position that might and ifshe |
should be detected in the act of treating him as
a wife would. inevitably, brand her as his mis- |
tress He could deny her and she would be |
helpless and her character would be ruined. |
On the other hand, such q construction would |
enable a designing and unprincipled woman to |
impose herself upon man as his wife without |
right and against his will We think Just such |
results were Intended 10 be prevented by the |
statute we are considering, and that in reqAir- |
ing that they should assume matrimonial rights |
duties aud obligations it was clearly intended |
that they should so conduct themselves toward |
each other as To give evidence to those with |
whom they might come in contact that they |
were husband and wife
The Court clears away a vast deal of
rubbish concerning the claim that there
may be establishment of the marriage re-
lition by accepting the sexual embrace
On that head the supreme tribunal echoes
the thought Of every man and woman of
sensibility in all the land, that the sexual
embrace is not cohabitation under the law
Capitalization is open living together as
man and wife in the face of all the world.
A secret agreement to conduct themselves
as man and wife secretly, and TO keep the
knowledge from the world, simply creates
the relation of man and mislress-that,
says the Supreme Court, is the plain En-
giish and the law of the whole matter, and
has been, it may be added, ever since God
Himself blessed the union of the first
woman and the first man. Capitalization is
the evidence before all the world Of men
that the parties have assumed marital
rights, duties and responsibilities that they
cannot themselves set aside or cast off
All there has ever been in the Hill
Sharon case may be very briefly stated
with perfect fairness to both parties
This man and this woman-conceding the
document to be genuine-signed an agree
ment to be man and wife, but that the re-
lation should be kept profound secret.
The woman, on her own statement, be il
remembered, signed supplemental agree
ment pleaging herself not to make the fact
of the contract known for two years, unless
the man should give consent. They then
had secret sexual relations, she secretly
received from him money, much as the
mistress receives coin from her master; she
secreted another woman in her bed-cham-