Definition
Causa jactitationis mari (also rendered in historical sources as causa jactitationis matrimonii) is a Latin phrase meaning, literally, "cause of the jactitation of marriage." It refers to an obsolete form of action that lay against a person who falsely boasted or gave out public representations that he or she was married to the plaintiff, when in fact no valid marriage existed. The action was designed to suppress the false claim before it could harden into a common reputation injurious to the plaintiff's marital status and social standing.
The core injury was reputational: by publicly asserting a marriage that did not exist, the defendant exposed the plaintiff to the legal and social consequences of a supposed union — including questions of legitimacy, property rights, and the ability to contract a valid marriage elsewhere. The remedy sought was a judicial declaration forbidding the defendant from continuing to make such assertions, essentially a perpetual injunction against the false boast.
The action belonged to the ecclesiastical courts in England, which held jurisdiction over matters of marriage and matrimonial status. It was not a damages action in the common law sense but a proceeding aimed at silencing and correcting the false representation.
---
Common Confusion
Causa jactitationis mari is closely related to but distinct from CAUSA MATRIMONII PRALOCUTI, another Latin writ that Bouvier's treats in adjacent entries. Causa matrimonii pralocuti addressed a broken marriage promise combined with a conveyance of land — a remedy for failure to fulfill a betrothal contract supported by property. Causa jactitationis mari, by contrast, addressed no broken promise and no property; it addressed a false public claim of an existing marriage. The two share Latin form and matrimonial subject matter but differ in injury, forum, and remedy. Researchers encountering either term in historical records should confirm which action is actually at issue before drawing conclusions about the underlying dispute.
---
Why It Matters in Research
This term is almost exclusively a matter of historical legal research. The action it describes was a creature of the English ecclesiastical courts and does not survive as a live form of action in modern common law jurisdictions. Researchers will encounter it primarily in:
— Pre-nineteenth-century ecclesiastical court records and reports, where it appears in its Latin form or anglicized as "jactitation of marriage."
— Historical treatises on ecclesiastical jurisdiction, including Blackstone's Commentaries (Book III, Chapter 7), which describes jactitation of marriage among the causes cognizable in the spiritual courts.
— Historical legal dictionaries and digests where it is catalogued among obsolete forms of action.
The key navigational trap is terminological compression. Bouvier's entry as preserved in the source material here is fragmentary, running jactitationis mari into an adjacent entry on causa matrimonii pralocuti. Researchers using early editions of Bouvier's or derivative digests may find the entries run together, obscuring which action is being described. Always confirm the Latin phrase in full before relying on a secondary characterization.
A second trap involves jurisdiction. Because this was an ecclesiastical court action, it will not appear in common law court records of the same period. Researchers searching King's Bench or Common Pleas records for jactitation proceedings will find nothing; the material lives in the records of the Consistory Courts, the Court of Arches, and related ecclesiastical tribunals.
The action was formally abolished in England by the Ecclesiastical Courts Act 1855 and the subsequent restructuring of matrimonial jurisdiction under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, which transferred jurisdiction over marriage to the civil Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Court. After that transfer, jactitation of marriage survived briefly as a civil proceeding but fell into disuse and was effectively extinguished by the twentieth century.
---
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary is the primary American secondary source that treats this term, and its entry is characteristically brief, pointing researchers toward Blackstone's Commentaries, Book III, page 93, for the substantive account. Blackstone's description is the more useful primary reference: he identifies jactitation of marriage as one of the causes exclusively within ecclesiastical jurisdiction, explains the nature of the boast complained of, and notes the remedy of perpetual silence imposed on the offending party.
Bouvier's does not diverge from Blackstone on substance but compresses the entry to near-uselessness without the Blackstone cross-reference. Researchers should treat Bouvier's entry as a finding aid pointing toward Blackstone rather than as a self-contained account.
No significant American decisional history surrounds this term. The action was essentially English ecclesiastical in character and did not transplant meaningfully into American jurisdictions after independence, which had no established ecclesiastical court system. American legal dictionaries that carry the term at all do so as historical curiosities rather than as live procedural references.
---
Jurisdictional Note
This action has no live application in any common law jurisdiction. In England it was abolished in the mid-nineteenth century. In American jurisdictions it never took root, owing to the absence of ecclesiastical courts. Researchers encountering the term in American legal sources from the colonial or early republic period should treat it as a reference to English practice rather than evidence of an established American form of action.
---