well-known feature in family life. It born of such marriages by trying to get the law is for that reason, perhaps, more than to declare them legitimate, and not because such a law is desired by the people of England. any other that I demur to this Bill, and Unfortunately, it is one of those social questions desire your Lordships to reject it. I which does not press itself on people's attention believe this Bill would break up, if it as an important one, except to those whose perwere passed, our social and domestic sonal or family relations will be influenced by circles. What is it which is achieved it; but to them it is, indeed, one of most serious moment. Its effect on the lives of such beby the prohibition against marriage reaved families will be a cruel one, for in within the prohibited degrees? It is making the relation of marriage possible benot merely some physical ends which tween a widower and his sister-in-law, it must, are gained, but much higher and much of necessity, also place them in the relation of holier ends. How is it that circles are perfect strangers to each other, and set apart those who have naturally come to feel a strong, created within which pure and dispas- helpful affection, for each other; but, worst of sionate love can dwell securely? They all, it will make it impossible for a woman to are not created by Nature, because give the love and care to her dead sister's chilNature would lead us to disregard all dren which every feeling of her heart and mind would prompt, unless, indeed, she do it under prohibitions. They are created by usage, the scathing ordeal of the world's scandal. It by custom, by teaching, by the prohibi- would not only set this seal to sorrow after a tion of the law. These things create a wife's death, but would impair the happiness of habit, and secure for us those circles married life from its commencement, for we of domestic purity through which the women are not all supernaturally wise, and many of us, we must admit, are jealous, and to greatest blessings and happiness have those who were foolish the expression of a flowed to us. And what takes place husband's affection for his sister-in-law would when that moment of supreme sorrow be a vexation, while to those who were good comes upon a family, when the mother and strong the thought of the possible future would be a constant anxiety. When each child is taken away, and when the children was born she would remember that if her life are left without her care? At that in- was taken her people could no longer be her stant, without waiting for the lapse of husband's people, her children would be estime, who is it that most naturally en-tranged by the effects of the law from their ters the darkened house to soothe and care for the children? It is the sister of their mother. That can be done now fearlessly. Could it be done if this Bill were passed? I know there are men who say it could; is there any woman who says it could? Do you suppose it would be possible for any woman of marriageable age to expose herself to the scandal and the insinuation that would arise if the law were changed? I have had as I daresay many of your Lordships have had communications upon this subject, expressed as women only can express them. I cannot venture to trouble your Lordships with them; but there is one of which I can make use. It is written to me by a person with whom I am not acquainted; but I have made inquiries, and ascertained that it is written by one who is what she professes to be-a lady having care of the children of a deceased sister in the house of her brother-in-law. And this is what she says, speaking of this Bill

"From all we can learn of the present movement it is far more a retrospective one than anything else. I mean that it is urged on by a few influential people who married their deceased wife's sisters, and who now desire to repair the wrong they have done to the children Earl Cairns

care, and her husband would be left to the alternative of probably making too hasty a marriage to make a wise one, or of giving his children to the thin protection of hired care."

These are views which I believe are the views entertained by the intelligent women of this country; and what I regret, above all, is that this is an attempt by the minority to tyrannize over the majority. Those who desire marriages of this kind are the minority, which I will not call miserable by way of disrespect, but only miserable as regards the number who compose it; and in order to gratify this minority you destroy the whole domestic and social comfort and happiness of the vast majority of the families of the country. I trust your Lordships will not be led to give your assent to this Bill. To this House, of all others, the country is wont to look for protection against violent disintegration and change. This Bill would cause a disintegration in our Marriage Law such as never has taken place beforea change which could not rest here, but which must subvert the whole of our law in regard to the position of a man in relation to his wife. I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time this day six months.

("now") and add at the end of the Motion ("this day six months.")-(The Earl Cairns.)

Amendment moved, to leave out so. If such proceedings were taken the jurisdiction would not last long. Let them take a case in which the law was observed, and what was it? Here were a man and a woman, in every way fitted for each other in respect to age, station, and disposition, with that reasonable affection for each other without which matrimony should not be contracted, and with the additional circumstances making marriage between them desirable-namely, that the man had a tender helpmate for his children, and that the woman loved them for their own sakes, and for the sake of her sister. Yet the law interfered and said they should not marry, or, if they did, it should be only on the dreadful terms he had mentioned. That, he contended, was a cruel case, and no law ought to compel it without the most cogent reasons. The noble and learned Earl had said that cogent reasons should be given for the proposed alteration of the law; and such a case as that which he had just placed before their Lordships was one very cogent reason. This, then, was what happened when the law was regarded; but to a very great extent it was not regarded. It was disregarded, as every law was disregarded which did not agree with men's consciences; and it was a most mischievous thing that there should be a law in existence which people were tempted to disobey. It was a bad example to set, and it tended to make them disregard other laws which were of more importance. Public opinion did not go against those who contracted such marriages, which were not regarded as offences against the law were. No man who married the sister of a deceased wife would be looked down upon, or shunned, or avoided in the present day, in the same way as he would be if he married his own sister, or if he committed some real and not theological offence in which his conscience went with the law and disapproved his conduct. The result was that such marriages were contracted, and would continue to be contracted, because men's feelings and consciences did not oppose them. But there were those who were driven to this who had no choice. He would ask their Lordships to disregard their high position for a moment, and to give a thought to that of the poor man in reference to this question. It had been said that this was not a poor man's

LORD BRAMWELL said, he hoped their Lordships would reject the Amendment of the noble and learned Earl, read the Bill a second time now, and end a law cruel, mischievous, and needless. He desired to say, at the outset, that he was utterly uninfluenced by any personal consideration, for he had never been acquainted with anyone who had the least personal interest in the alteration of the law. The present state of the law had been about half-a-century in existence, for the law, as it stood now, was wholly and entirely different from what it was before Lord Lyndhurst's Act. It was true that marriages such as were within the prohibited degrees were voidable before Lord Lyndhurst's Act; but it was not true that they were void, as he understood the noble and learned Earl (Earl Cairns) to say. On the death of either parent the child of such a marriage would have been, before that Act, the heir to the estate, without the possibility of his right being set aside; and if, after a man had married his deceased wife's sister, he had married another woman, without having his marriage with the deceased wife's sister declared void, he would have been guilty of bigamy. The difference between the law before that Act and since was thisthat people did enter into these marriages, and they were not voided, because no one was so cruel or so wicked as to attempt to make void a happy marriage. He admitted that the condition of the law was objectionable before the Act of Lord Lyndhurst was passed; but that Act made it worse, for it made void those marriages, which people had entered into and would enter into. The present law was bad when it was observed, and worse when it was not observed. He used the word "observed" advisedly, because there was really no command. The law allowed a man and woman to go through the ceremony of marriage; it allowed them to live together; but upon the terms that the woman was the man's concubine, and that the children were illegitimate. It was true that proceedings might be taken against them even now in the Ecclesiastical Courts; but no one would venture to do

the right way for a man and woman to live together without scandal was that they should not be able to marry. One would have thought that the safest course would be that they should be permitted to marry. That was not his argument, but it was the argument of a distinguished Prelate, and a man of the greatest ability-Archbishop Whately. There was absolutely nothing in this so-called social argument against the Bill. There were 100,000,000 Englishspeaking people in the world. With two-thirds of them those marriages were lawful and valid; with the one-third in this country they were not. Why? Perhaps their Lordships might judge the reason without his going further. Another remark he desired to make was that he thought it extremely hard that persons who contracted those marriages should be charged, as he had seen them charged, with lust. He did not see why it was lust, unless they assumed that the woman was the wrong woman. They had no right to apply that opprobrious term until they established, first of all, that it was an improper marriage. They had no right to use such a word for the purpose of insinuating that it was an improper marriage. The argument was, it was lust because the woman was wrong, and the woman was wrong because it was lust - a vicious circle. He came now to an argument which he approached with reluctance, as he wished to show indulgence to the feelings of others, knowing how much he needed indulgence for his own. He would not call it the religious argument -the word was too good for it--but he would call it the theological argument. Their Lordships need not fear that he would go deeply into the theological ar

Bill. No doubt, the Bill was not one that had been promoted by poor menpoor men did not promote Bills there or "elsewhere." Yet it was especially a Bill in which the poor man was interested. It was well known that hundreds of thousands of poor men were compelled to reside in one room with their families; and a man of that class, having been left a widower, and having secured the kind services of his deceased wife's sister to look after his children-and who could do so better than she could? -would almost be driven, under such circumstances, to commit sin, unless he could protect himself and the woman by marriage. Persons placed in this position often went through the form of marriage. In one case, which gave him the greatest pain, he tried a man for having committed perjury by making some declaration which was necessary in order to enable him to make his union with a deceased wife's sister as decent as he could by marriage. In respect to what had been called the social argument against the Bill, he regretted that he had again heard it stated as an objection to an alteration of the law that if a man could not marry his deceased wife's sister, then the latter could live in the house of the married couple during the life of her sister with a feeling of perfect safety. The alternative to that argument was simply shocking to his mind, and it was scarcely to be mentioned in an Assembly of English Gentlemen. Consider what the argument involved. This-that if, after the wife's death, her sister and her husband could marry, they would, or might, in her life, lust for each other. It was not true. If they would-if they were so lost to all decency and feeling of right-would they be restrained by such a considera-gument. He knew as little of theology tion as that they could not marry on her death? Another argument had been brought forward which, in his opinion, was as unfounded. It had been said that if, after the death of a wife, the wife's sister could not marry the widower, she would be able to live in his house with safety, and without fear of scandal. But he would ask their Lordships whether it was wise or prudent, especially if the man and woman were young and attractive, that they should live together in the way suggested? It certainly was not, and it seemed to him to be the most enormous paradox in the world to say that Lord Bramwell

as he did of astrology. Their Lordships would admit that religion was for the guidance of man in his daily conduct, with a view to his happiness here and hereafter. It was to guide and govern not only those who had plenty of mind and intellect to enable them to master the subtlest problem, but those who were without this qualification, or had no more than a small part of it. Now, he would ask, in all seriousness, was it possible to make such a man understand why he was not to marry his deceased wife's sister? Suppose he went to a theologian and said "I desire to marry my de

ceased wife's sister. Will you tell me | metaphorical expression, and was never why it is wrong? Is it put down in plain language anywhere?" He thought

"Need we wonder at the miseries of the Royal Houses of Arragon, Castile, Braganza, and Bourbon, when we read of their incestuous marriages ?

sion might be made for such cases, if | (Earl Cairns) attempt to go through all any. The noble and learned Earl oppo- the arguments we have heard with anysite (Earl Cairns) said that if the Bill thing like continuity; but I may propassed, these marriages in Church would test against the assertion with which the still not be valid. That was probably noble Earl who opened the debate (the the case. But the only remark he could Earl of Dalhousie) characterized the obmake as to this point was that the Bill jections that are felt to this Bill. I must was so drawn to avoid offence to the assure him that these objections are not clergy. Again, it had been said by the. vague and fanciful, and that, if they noble and learned Earl that incest was appear so to him, it can only be because a creature of the law; that there was he has not taken enough trouble to be no such thing as a natural repugnance thoroughly acquainted with them. We to any sort of marriage; and that unless who oppose the Bill perfectly understand the law pronounced it invalid a man what we mean when we say that religion might marry his mother or sister. That and morality are deeply involved in this was an argument suggested; and he question. I thank God that the word would only deal with it by asking whe- "Scriptural" still bears in England, to ther that was the feeling actually enter- some extent, the meaning of "moral," tained by anyone, and whether the and that what is laid down in Scripture horror of incest, and the natural repul- does come to us with the force of a moral sion from it, was not as strong in the commandment. It is well known that promoters of the Bill as in its opponents? the chapter in Leviticus, so often referred It had been askedto, which tells us what marriages are forbidden and what permitted does not go through the whole list of prohibitions, but needs to be looked at in the light of reason and common sense. In saying this I cast no slur on the word "theology." You will soon banish religion if you banish theology, for theology is a science, just as jurisprudence is a science; and as that practice of the law which the noble and learned Lord adorns rests upon its science, so it is on theology as a science that religion as a rule of life ultimately rests. Look at that chapter in the light of common sense, and the question before the House is obscure only in the sense in which a sum is obscure which a boy has to do by a rule which he has already learnt. Affinity is not, so far as I know, a physical fact; no one said it was; but what runs clearly through the whole chapter is that affinity and the oneness of the flesh of man and wife are THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: to be regarded as regulating the relations My Lords, I am afraid that I am at a of the two families thus united. The great disadvantage in following, and not case has not always been properly stated. being able to meet in the same spirit, the In the long sermon which came out in eloquent and able speech to which we the newspapers this morning, as an adhave just listened. It is wholly impos-vertisement for a Marriage Law Resible for me to argue this question with jokes, or to descend to the level of a bull, in order to excuse to your Lordships the grotesqueness that follows from the received law of the Christian Church-a law which we have always looked upon as dating from the very beginning of religion. Nor need I, after the speech of the noble and learned Earl opposite

Now, of these Houses, two had passed away, and it was suggested, not because of any incestuous marriages in those houses, but on account of one by a German uncle. The House of Braganza had not by any means been overwhelmed by misery. The Bourbons had been unlucky, no doubt, as one King of this line had been beheaded, two had been driven from France and one from Naples, but none of them, as far as he was aware, had married their deceased wife's sister. Surely no one could hope to influence a Legislature by such arguments. He would say no more, but could only repeat that as things were this was a cruel and mischievous law, for which he could see no justification.

Lord Bramwell

form Association, it is said that this affinity is a fiction, because other affinities are allowed to be contracted, and are not forbidden by the Table. If that is alleged as an argument, surely the most elementary examination of the question shows that it is no argument at all. Neither in consanguinity nor in affinity is marriage