The children are not constrained so to say, but may freely answer and say, that wife, or that husband doth not please me. I wil none of thys ma∣trimony. And doubtles also without the consent of the child, matrimonie is to be contracted by no maner of meanes, as it is red in the law:* 1.1 Filius non potest addigi vt vxorem ducat. A sonne cannot be compelled to mar¦rie a wyfe.
Vvhen Abrahams seruaunt came into Mesopotamia, and had found a wife for his maisters sonne, when the parents of the mayd would haue the seruaunt to tary longer, and he would not, they called the Damosell and asked whither she would go with him, or no.
Vvhen the fathers deale with their children tirantlike, and would constraine them to marry wiues, which they cannot brooke nor beare withal, then the matter is to be brought before the Magistrate, whose office it is to heare the cause, and to deliuer the same from iniury: than if the sonne do marry by the authority of the Magistrate, yea although it be against the parents wil, it cannot be said that he marrieth vtterly without the consēt of his father, for a Magistrate est pater patriae, is the father of the country.
The scholemen doo not rightly say that the sonnes haue power ouer their own bodies, they ought not in dede to be compelled against theyr will to marry: but that they may marry without the consent of their pa¦rents, it cannot be graunted.
By the ciuile law the power of the father is so great, that he may sell him, if he fal into extreme necessity.* 1.2 The same is permitted also by the law of God, as in the booke of Exodus, yet with certaine cautions and circumstances.
Vpon this I conclude, that they argue not well, which saye that that matrimony is a certaine kinde of bondage, which the sonne cannot enter into, without consent of the father.