Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION. reported by JAMES bURNETT, LORD MONBODDO.

John Cameron
v.
Miss Malcolm

Date: 29 June 1756

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[Kaimes, No. 109.]

The Lords in this case reduced a marriage, on account that the woman was but twelve years and four months old, and that her consent was not so deliberate and determined as the nature of that most solemn contract required.

Prestongrange, in this case, said that he did not think it was a clear point that, by our law, a woman could be married before the age of fourteen; and for this he quoted the authority of Skene, de Verb. Sig., Craig, and Stair; for though several of our authors speak of twelve as the nuptial age, yet they speak so rather as Roman lawyers than as Scotch; at least he thought the age betwixt twelve and fourteen a dubious age, in which it required the fullest proof both of her deliberate and full consent, and of her bodily capacity for marriage; and he thought that, suppose she had rashly given her consent within that age, yet she might retract it rebus integris, before the copula followed, which was the case here.