INTRODUCTION

The historical development of the law of impediments to marriage in Scotland and Louisiana has proceeded and continues to proceed on closely parallel tracks. In both jurisdictions, the earliest law seems to have been one or another version of the “sacred” law of the Roman Catholic Church (the so-called “canon law”), which, in turn, was in large part but a re-working, in the light of Biblical teaching and Christian moral theology, of post-classical (and, in some respects, even classical) Roman law. In both jurisdictions, this “sacred” law was eventually replaced by “secular” law, a change that, at least at first, had little impact on the actual content of the law. But then, over time and especially in the twentieth century, the secular law of each jurisdiction has progressively been purged of many of the elements within it that were of distinctively canonical origin and of even a few of its Roman law elements. On top of that, in both jurisdictions, the elements that have been so purged, on the one hand, or preserved, on the other, turn out to be very much the same. Still, there remain a few differences, several conspicuous. Examples include the following: (1) Scotland alone continues to recognise the traditional Roman/canon law “impediments” to marriage of “impotence” and “impuberty”; (2) the remaining vestiges of the traditional Roman/canon law impediment of “close relation” vary somewhat from one jurisdiction to the other; and (3) though both jurisdictions continue to recognise the traditional Roman/canon law impediment of “identity of sex”, the rationale for and the strength of commitment to this decision vary widely between the two jurisdictions.