Definition
An ecclesiastical court action brought by a plaintiff against a person who falsely boasted or publicly gave out that he or she was married to the plaintiff. The action sought a judicial declaration that no marriage existed and an order compelling the defendant to perpetually hold his or her peace — that is, to cease making the false claim. The remedy was essentially a silencing order, not damages. The cause lay in the ecclesiastical courts of England because marriage was considered a spiritual matter within their exclusive jurisdiction.
The name breaks into its components: causa (cause or action), jactitationis (of boasting or vaunting), matrimonii (of marriage) — together, "the action for boasting of marriage." The entry in Rapalje & Lawrence appears truncated mid-word, running into the separate entry CAUSA MATRIMONII PRÆLOCUTIO, which reflects the physical layout of the original dictionary page rather than any legal connection between the two terms.
Common Confusion
CAUSA JACTITATIONIS MATRIMONII vs. JACTITATION OF MARRIAGE: These are the same proceeding — the Latin form and the common English form of the action. Researchers encountering one should look for the other. Historical sources index the action inconsistently, sometimes under the Latin head, sometimes under "jactitation," and occasionally under "marriage, jactitation of." Failure to search all three forms will produce incomplete results in a historical corpus.
CAUSA JACTITATIONIS MATRIMONII vs. NULLITY OF MARRIAGE: These are distinct actions with different purposes. A nullity suit challenged the validity of a marriage that was actually contracted. A causa jactitationis matrimonii addressed a situation where no marriage had been contracted at all — the defendant merely claimed one existed. The plaintiff in jactitation was not seeking to undo a marriage but to deny that any marriage ever occurred.
Why It Matters in Research
This is an archaic ecclesiastical action with no direct modern counterpart. Researchers should be aware of several navigational traps:
The action was abolished in England along with the general jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts over matrimonial causes when those matters were transferred to the new Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Court by the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857. After that date, the action disappears from English legal practice. Any corpus material post-dating 1857 that references this form is either historical commentary, a treatise discussion, or American authority drawing on pre-abolition English sources.
American reception was uneven. A handful of American states with ecclesiastical court traditions or strong equity court practice recognized or debated recognition of the action, but most American jurisdictions never adopted it. Some American courts treated the underlying grievance as actionable through different procedural vehicles — injunction, declaratory judgment, or even defamation — rather than as an independent ecclesiastical cause. Researchers searching American sources should not assume the action traveled intact to the colonies or states.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry is fragmentary as it appears in the Law Mind corpus. The entry cuts off mid-word at "PRÆLO-," picking up in what is plainly the beginning of the adjacent entry CAUSA MATRIMONII PRÆLOCUTIO. This is a transcription or typographical artifact of the original source and does not reflect a combined or hybrid legal concept. Researchers relying on this entry in isolation will have an incomplete picture; Blackstone's Commentaries Book III at page 93 — the precise citation Rapalje & Lawrence provides — is the foundational primary source for this action and should be consulted directly.
Because the action existed entirely within ecclesiastical court practice, it will appear in records of the Consistory Courts, the Court of Arches, and related ecclesiastical tribunals rather than in common law court reports. Researchers unfamiliar with ecclesiastical court record structures may miss the bulk of the relevant primary source material.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence provide only a brief entry, consistent with the action's status as an obsolete form by the time the dictionary was compiled. Their definition is accurate as far as it goes: an action against one who "boasted or gave out that he or she was married to the plaintiff," with a citation to Blackstone. The truncation of the entry is a source artifact, not a reflection of the term's definition.
Blackstone's treatment at 3 Commentaries 93 remains the most accessible historical authority in the common law tradition. Blackstone describes jactitation of marriage as one of the causes properly belonging to the ecclesiastical courts, situating it within the broader framework of ecclesiastical jurisdiction over matrimonial matters.
Historical dictionaries generally agree on the core definition. Where they diverge is in the level of procedural detail offered — some noting the "perpetual silence" remedy explicitly, others omitting it. The remedy is in fact the most legally distinctive feature of the action and should not be overlooked.
No historical dictionary in the standard corpus gives meaningful treatment to the American reception question, which is a gap researchers must fill from case law and treatise sources outside the dictionary shelf.
Jurisdictional Note
The action is essentially English ecclesiastical law. It was abolished in England in 1857. American jurisdictions largely did not adopt the action as a formal cause, though some courts addressed equivalent situations through equity or declaratory relief. Researchers should not assume uniform treatment across common law jurisdictions.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See: JACTITATION OF MARRIAGE; ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS; NULLITY OF MARRIAGE