If you discharge a pistol
accidentally, and kill a man, you can go free, for you have done no
murder; but if you try to kill a man, and manifestly intend to kill him,
but fail utterly to do it, the law still holds that the intention
constituted the crime, and you are guilty of murder. Ergo, if you had
married Edwitha accidentally, and without really intending to do it, you
would not actually be married to her at all, because the act of marriage
could not be complete without the intention. And ergo, in the strict
spirit of the law, since you deliberately intended to marry Edwitha, and
didn't do it, you are married to her all the same--because, as I said
before, the intention constitutes the crime. It is as clear as day that
Edwitha is your wife, and your redress lies in taking a club and
mutilating Jones with it as much as you can. Any man has a right to
protect his own wife from the advances of other men. But you have
another alternative--you were married to Edwitha first, because of your
deliberate intention, and now you can prosecute her for bigamy, in
subsequently marrying Jones. But there is another phase in this
complicated case: You intended to marry Edwitha, and consequently,
according to law, she is your wife--there is no getting around that; but
she didn't marry you, and if she never intended to marry you, you are not
her husband, of course.
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