; 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.

The intention of the law was doubtless good, and it might be argued that
it should not have caused offence, since it did not interfere with
religious marriage ceremonies. There is no doubt that it was very
strongly favored by a large part of the Cuban nation. When it was
proposed to repeal or to modify it materially the vast majority of
municipal governments in the island, all of the judges of the Supreme
Court, a majority of the judges of first instance, and half of the
Provincial Governors, urged its retention unchanged. The clergy of the
Roman Catholic church, however, opposed it vigorously and persistently,
and it was finally deemed desirable to modify it so as to make either
civil or religious marriage valid. The objection to it had been, of
course, that by invalidating religious marriages it cast a certain slur
upon the church. It is interesting to recall, however, that the law in
its objectionable form was the work of a Cuban jurist, while in its
amended and acceptable form it was the work of an American and conformed
with the law in the United States, wher