456 FORNSHILL v. MURRAY.—1 BLAND.

Barlow, Doug. 171. But although, in such cases, the mere general
reputation of a marriage may not be deemed sufficient, yet it ap-
pears, that the deliberate admission of the defendant in an action
of crim. con., that the woman was the wife of the plaintiff; or the
confession of the accused of the fact of the first marriage in a
prosecution for bigamy, will even in those cases be received as
sufficient to establish the fact of the marriage. Stark. Ev. 4 pt.
36 and 1185.

In England the spiritual Court has jurisdiction to inquire into
the validity of a contract of marriage; and may, in certain cases,
determine, that it is wholly void, or decree, that it be dissolved,
and that the parties be divorced; but in all cases not falling with-
in the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts the Parliament
alone can grant relief. 4 Bac. Abr. 554. In Maryland, there
never having been an Ecclesiastical Court, and no power to grant
a divorce, by annulling, *for any cause, a contract of mar-
483 riage which was originally valid, ever having been conferred
upon any of the Courts of justice, it follows, that a divorce can
only be granted by an Act of the General Assembly. Utterson v.
Tewsh, Fergusson's Rep. 23; Mrs. Levett's Case, Ferg. Rep. Append,
note G, 382. But all questions concerning alimony, under the
Provincial Government, were considered as having devolved upon
the Court of Chancery. It was however provided, February 1777,
ch. 12, s. 15, that the General Court should have power, on an
indictment or by petition of either party, to inquire into the validity
of any marriage, and might declare any marriage, contrary to the
marriage act, or any second marriage, the first subsisting, null and
void. This law, as it would seem, may now, since the abolition of
the General Court, on proper application, be executed by a County
Court. This Court has been clothed with no such authority to
determine the validity of a contract of marriage; but, by virtue of
its general jurisdiction in matters of fraud affecting contracts, it
would seem, that, considering marriage as a mere civil contract,
it may, at the instance of either party, declare, a marriage to be
null and void, which has been procured by abduction, terror and
fraud. Portsmouth v. Portsmouth, 1 Hag. Rep. 355; In the matter
of Fust, 1 Cox, 418; Ex parte Turing, 1 Ves. & Bea. 140; Ferlet v.
Gojon, 1 Hopk. 478.

In England, the validity of a marriage which is not absolutely
void but merely voidable, can only be drawn in question and deter-
mined, in a suit instituted for that purpose, in the Ecclesisatical
Court. But, as by the death of the husband, or wife, the mar-
riage is at an end, so any then depending suit, which may have
been instituted during their lives for that purpose, is thereby im-
mediately abated, and cannot be, in any way, revived or further
prosecuted; nor can any other judicial proceeding be thereafter
instituted, in the Ecclesiastical Courts or otherwise, for the pur-