M A R M A R 505 trest islands were first sighted by Ingraham the American in 1791, and were subsequently visited by Marehand (1791) and Hergest (1792). A more extensive investigation of the archipelago was made by Krnsenstern in 1804. Of later navigators to the Marquesas tho most noteworthy are Stewart (1829), Bennett (1835), and D Urville (1838), and, since the date of the French occupation, Dumoulin, Jouan, and above all Jardin. See C. E. Meinicke, Die Inseln des stillcn Occam, Leipsic, 1875-76 ; Tableaux da pop., <L-c., dcs col. fran$. for 1877. MARQUETRY. See FURNITURE. MARQUETTE, a city and port of entry of the United States, and the county seat of Marquette county, Michigan, lies on a bluff about 25 feet above a bay of Lake Superior, and is a terminus of the Marquette, Houghton, and Onton- agon, and the Detroit, Mackinac, and Marquette Railroads. Though the population of the city was only 4690 in 1880, Marquette is a place of importance as the chief shipping port for the great iron-ore region of western Michigan (787,150 tons shipped in 1881), and contains a number of blast furnaces, foundries, machine-shops, and powder- mills, while at the same time it has a reputation as a resort for invalids and tourists. A Roman Catholic cathe dral, convent, and orphan asylum are among the public buildings. MARQUETTE, JACQUES, a Jesuit missionary and explorer, was born in 1637 at Laon in France, and died May 18, 1675, on the banks of a small stream, now known as the Marquette, which has its mouth on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. Having joined the Society of Jesus, he sailed for Canada in 1666, spent eighteen months in the vicinity of Three Rivers, founded the mission of Sault Sainte Marie on Lake Superior in 1668, and followed the Hurons to Mackinaw in 1671. It is mainly, however, as Joliet s companion in his voyage down the Mississippi in 1673 that Marquette holds a permanent position in the history of discovery in America. His narrative, first published in Thevenot s Jlccueil de Voyages (Paris, 1681), is printed along with other documents relating to him in Shea s Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley (New York, 1852). MARQUIS, or MARQUESS, a title and rank of nobility, the second in the order of the British peerage, and there fore next to duke. The first marquis in England was Robert de Vere, the ninth earl of Oxford, who by Richard II., 1st December 1385, was created marquis of Dublin. On the 13th of October following the patent of this marquisate was recalled, Robert de Yere then having been raised to a dukedom. John de Beaufort, the second legitimate son of John of Gaunt, was created to the second marquisate as marquis of Dorset, 29th September 1397. From that period this dignity appears to have been dormant till the reign of Henry VI., when it was revived, and thenceforward it maintained its place in the British peerage. A marquis is " most honourable," and is styled " my lord marquis." . Marquis s Coronet . His wife, who also is " most honourable," is a marchioness, and is styled "my lady marchioness." The coronet is a circlet of gold on which rest four leaves and as many large pearls, all of them of equal height and connected. The cap and lining, if worn, are the same as in the other coronets. The coronet, which in representations displays one central leaf with two pearls and two half-leaves, when without cap or lining, is shown in the annexed woodcut. The mantle of parliament is scarlet, and has three and a half doublings of ermine. MARRIAGE, LAW or. 1 Marriage may be defined here as the act, ceremony, or process by which the legal relation- 1 See also HUSBAND AND WFFE and DIVORCE. ship of husband and wife is constituted. In most if not all legal systems it takes the form of a contract the mutual assent of the parties being the prominent and indis pensable feature of the ceremony. Whether it is really a contract or not, and if so to what class of contracts it belongs, are questions which have been much discussed, but into which it is not necessary to enter. While the consent of parties is universally deemed one of the con ditions of a legal marriage, all the incidents of the relation ship constituted by the act are absolutely fixed by law. In the United States it has been expressly decided that marriage is not a contract within the meaning of the constitutional law, which prohibits state enactments "impairing the obligation of contracts." Mr Bishop, however, in his very valuable book on Marriage and Divorce, suggests that a State law permitting the status of marriage to be created without the consent of both parties would not be constitutional ; but that is a difficulty arising put of the peculiar relation of the States to the Union. The question whether marriage is merely a contract or more than a contract, whether a purely civil or also a religious act, belongs to a similar order of inquiries. The jurist has only to deal with marriage in so far as it creates the legal, status of husband and wife. It should be added that, while marriage is generally spoken of by lawyers as a contract, its complete isolation from all other contracts is invariably recognized. Its peculiar position may be seen at once by comparing it with other contracts giving rise to continuous relationships with more or less indefinite obligations, like those of landlord and tenant, master and servant, &c. In these the parties may in general make their rights and duties what they please, the law only intervening when they are silent. In marriage every resulting right and duty is fixed by the hiw. 2 Roman Law. The three primitive modes of marriage were confarreatio, coemptio in manum, and usus, all of which had the effect of placing the woman in the "power" (manus) of her husband, and on the same footing as the children. The first was a religious ceremony before ten witnesses, in which an ox was sacrificed and a wheaten cake broken and divided between the spouses by the priest. Coemptio was a conveyance of the woman by mancipatio, and might be described as a fictitious sale per xs et libram, like that employed in emancipation and testa mentary disposition and other processes, Usus was the acquisition of the wife by prescription, through her cohabit ing with the husband for one year without having been absent from his house three continuous nights. But a true marriage might be concluded without adopting any of these modes, and they all fell into desuetude and with them the subjection of the wife to the man as. Marriage without manus was contracted by the interchange of con sent, without writing or formality of any kind. By some jurists it is regarded as incomplete until consummated by delivery of the woman, and is accordingly referred to the class of real contracts. The restrictions as to age, relation ship by consanguinity and affinity, previous marriage, &c., were in the main those which have continued to prevail in modern Europe with one important exception. The consent of the paterfamilias to the marriage of the children under his power was essential. In the Canon Law, which is related on the one hand to the civil law, on the other to the modern matrimonial law of Europe, although marriage was not merely a contract but a sacrament, the validity of marriages by consent was nevertheless admitted. " When the natural and civil contract was formed," says Lord Stowell, "it had the full 2 A full collection of juridical opinion as to the legal character of marriage is to be found in Lord Eraser s Husband and Wife,
vol. i. chap. ii.