JS Mill on Nineteenth Century Marriage and the Common Law

Abstract

This article seeks to clarify the meaning of marriage for Millian liberals by examining marriage in the context of the nineteenth century common law. JS Mill argues that the family can become a school for free institutions. He identifies a ‘‘morality of justice’’ that must replace chivalry or submission as the normal mode of gendered relations. By using pamphlets, speeches, and legal commentaries, it is possible to explain the meaning of Mill’s ‘‘morality of justice,’’ and also to distinguish his liberal conception of marriage from its common law foundations and from sacramental approaches that define marital dissolubility and flexibility differently.