MARRIAGE AND THE NOTION OF CONSENT IN EARLY AMERICAN LAW

Marriage and family relations have been in the focus of law since the beginnings of American legal history. Many legal historians underline that during the colonial period the family played very important role and therefore the growth ofstable families was generally a top priority for early colonial governments. This was one of the ways to help the development of colony and the creation of stable society. Besides, differences in origin and evolution of colonies influenced the shape of law and that is why many institutions were not uniformly regulated. Therefore the research on the development of law in British colonies in North America deserves special interest.The author’s intention was to answer the question whether the early colonial laws contained the requirement to obtain the consent before marriage, and if so – how it was regulated. In the first part, the article is focused on the analysis of thelegal regulations from colonial British America, dealing with the relation of the notion of consent and marriage. In the second part, there were presented issues like the consent for slave marriages, groundless lack of parental consent and theconsequences of marriage without consent as well as withdrawal of given consent