In 1795 he married her privately, but did not avow his marriage till 1802.
It's because they do not more boldly avow God.
But anarchists do not avow autocracy as the ultimate condition they seek.
From the real or fancied rapprochements between Cartesianism and Jansenism, it became for a while impolitic, if not dangerous, to avow too loudly a preference for Cartesian theories.
Washington (9 vols., New York, 1853-1854), and - the best - by Paul 3 "Jefferson, in 1789, wrote some such stuff about the will of majorities, as a New Englander would lose his rank among men of sense to avow."