not carry with it that weight which secured to our statutes obedience from all who were not determined and very profligate law-breakers. He could tell the House, that the statute had been resisted and evaded by men of a far different complexion than profligate and professed law-breakers. He believed he was entitled to say, that it had been evaded to a large extent by men of all classes-by persons of education, and by persons who had no other moral slur or taint upon their character than what this law, which they deemed to be unjustly founded, might be considered by some to convey. This alone, he thought, was a fact sufficient to show the necessity at least of considering whether, if they determined to retain the law, it was not necessary to make it effectual for the purpose for which it was intended; its main purpose being the prevention of great domestic unhappiness, and of frequent and expensive litigation with regard to the rights of inheritance and of property. That object had not been gained by the present law: and why? because those persons who thought themselves morally and religiously entitled to infringe the statute, resorted not merely to countries beyond the dominion of the law, but, he had been told, resorted to Scotland it self for that purpose.

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The utmost uncertainty prevail ed amongst lawyers as to the ac tual efficiency of that evasion; and lawyers of eminence were daily and hourly consulted as to the means by which the existing law could be evaded. The solicitors of London and other places had petitioned for a remedy for that state of things He had understood that these pe titions had been spoken of without

much deference to the opinion of that body. On such a subject as this, he had considerable deference for the opinion of a large body of solicitors, unless he thought that that opinion was biassed by professional views of their own interest. Attornies were, probably, better acquainted than any other class in society with the social current and stream of life running through all ranks and grades. They were often the archivists he might say, the confessors of families: and in this instance, he was disposed to think more favourably of their opinion, because what they were calling upon the Legislature to do was directly in the teeth of their own professional interests. He remembered a story of two foxhunters falling into a quarry: one of them was upon the point of warning the rest of the field of the danger, when the other said, "Lie still; hold your tongue, and we shall have them all in the pit presently." Now if these attornies had been low-minded, self-seeking men, they might have said, "Don't warn the Legislature of those evils; hold your tongue, and we shall soon have a plentiful crop of lawsuits pass through our hands, which will bring grist to the mill." Some seven years had passed since this law was enacted: many children had been born from marriages which it was supposed the law treated as void; and he would venture to say, that the seeds of litigation were now lying dormant, which would by-and-by flourish, and yield a most plenteous harvest. That harvest he wished to prevent.

The Bill which he desired to introduce, was identical with that which Lord Wharncliffe had formerly brought forward in the House of Lords; and a principal point of it

was, that it would enable a widower to marry his deceased wife's sister. Lord F. Egerton then entered into a consideration of some of the main arguments which had been urged against legalizing such marriages. One of those on which much stress was laid was, that the possibility of such a connection might create domestic dissensions and embitter the wife's feelings during her life time with harassing anticipations and suspicions regarding her sister. It might happen that wives would be found of so jealous a disposition as to entertain such a sus picion of their husbands. But it was so difficult to provide against individual cases of the kind, that he thought they ought not to be contemplated in legislation. Such cases must be beyond the contemplation of those who were framing statutes for the general regulation of society. Again, it had been suggested that a measure of this kind would diminish to some extent the sanctity now supposed to invest, and which he trusted did invest, the character of the sister of a wife that it would tend to lessen, if not to disperse, the halo of intangibility now surrounding the character of the sister of a man's wife. He owned that he felt no such apprehensions; and believed that, as the statutes upon this subject were of recent origin, another enactment in the direction which he wished the law to take would poduce no such effect.

Those who objected to the mea sure were bound to make out a case of social expediency in opposition to it to a very great amount. Perhaps that House was not aware of the extent to which the exist ing law was evaded. Since 1835, in Manchester alone, ninety-one cases of evasion had been ascer

tained, and it was supposed that four or five times as many more had actually taken place. He mentioned an authentic case in which a dying wife desired to leave her children to the care of her sister, and enjoined her husband to marry the sister for that purpose; surely it was a great responsibility for the Legislature to interfere between a husband and such parting injunctions of a wife. The voice of Heaven was silent on this question, and that of man had been given with a hesitation and confusion of utterance which deprived it of its full authority. Up to 1835 the prohibitions rested on the Canons of 1603, Bishop Par ker's prohibited degrees; by the present Bill it was proposed to set forth distinctly the degrees of consanguinity and lineal affinity to which the prohibition would apply. The existing laws in foreign countries countenanced the change. In the most Christian communities of Europe these marriages were allowed, under various restrictions. The restrictions, in the Protestant states of Germany, were chiefly directed against the crime of previous adultery; and in some instances they invested the Sovereign with a power of dispensation similar to that which in Roman Catholic countries lay in the Pope. The common consent of other Protestant Christian countries in favour of allowing these marriages rendered it to him more surprising that they should have been so long prohibited here. He concluded by moving for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the Act of 1835, intituled, " An Act to render certain marriages valid, and to alter the law with respect to certain voidable marriages, and to define the prohibited degrees of affinity."

Sir R. H. Inglis regretted that a Bill on such a subject had been introduced at all; but doubly that it had been brought forward by one whose station and acquirements added a double weight to the mischief. Lord F. Egerton had neither relied on the revealed Word of God, nor thought it opposed to him,-on that question he would not now enter; though he followed the example of the noble Lord, however, as regarded the mode of treating that part of the subject, he did not agree with him; conceiving, as he did, that the law of God did prohibit that which the noble Lord sought to legalize. It would be sufficient for him to state what the noble Lord had not denied, and what, he believed, was undeniable, that the concurrent testimony of the universal Christian Church distinctly showed that the marriages which the noble Lord sought to sanctify were by the Church not sanctioned. Such marriages might or might not be contrary to Scripture -they might or might not be contrary to the revealed will of God -but certainly the universal Church, for fifteen centuries, declared them to be contrary to her tenets. The noble Lord had referred to the Council of Illiberis: without entering into details regarding any decisions of that Council, he would simply repeat the proposition, that in no instance in church antiquity would the noble Lord find these marriages to have been sanctified. But he did not rest on the authority of revelation; reasons of the time sufficed to show that the proposition was one improper to be entertained for prac tical, political, and general reasons:

cases of seeming hardship to individuals. He had referred to the case of a person bereaved of his wife, who in her dying moments consigned her children to the care of her own sister, and enjoined her husband to make that sister his lawful wife. He would not deny that such cases existed-not perhaps in great numbers, but certainly to as great an extent as the noble Lord had represented; but even making this admission, what was the state of the case? Why, it would be found that for every solitary instance in which the present law pressed heavily, there would be nine-and-forty others in which its alteration would be destructive to domestic peace; for were the noble Lord's proposition agreed to, husbands would be in a great measure deprived of the assistance of those who, next to their own wives, were the best assistants in the care and nurture of their children. He believed that at present there was only one case on record in which an unlawful intercourse was even alleged to have taken place between a husband and his wife's sister. What was this owing to? Solely because, under the present state of the law, husbands considered their wives' sisters to stand in the same relation to them as their own sisters. ["No, no!"] He earnestly hoped that denial was not intended to imply that there was any one in that House or in the country who looked on the relationship in any other point of view. It had always been his habit when he saw a measure which was objectionable either in a Parliamentary or a moral sense, to consider himself bound either to affirm the principle or to reject it. Even, therefore,

limiting his view of the present measure to one solitary circumstance, he should feel bound to vote for its rejection.

The noble Lord did not confine his measure to marriages with a deceased wife's sister; but he proposed to annex a schedule, which would open the ground to further alteration. Whatever was not included would be so much withdrawn from what was prescribed by the Church of England, and by other Christian Churches. His noble Friend said the voice of Heaven was silent, and that the voice of man was in favour of this measure; and he had referred to what had occurred in the House on this subject some years ago. Now what security would they have, if they consented to this Bill, that seven years hence another new measure on the subject would not be proposed, suggesting new amendments in addition to those to be effected by the present schedule? He thought that it was most undesirable that they should open the door to such an occurrence. This was not a subject of such an exciting nature-it was not a subject so free from all delicacy and difficulty, that it was desirable for the House to be continually called on to legislate upon it.

Upon these considerations he felt that there was sufficient in the announcement of this measure to induce him to take the sense of the House, as to whether they would consider it at all; and without taking up further time, he did hope that they would put a stop to such propositions by at once rejecting the motion.

Mr. Milnes said, that this was one of those questions which came home to the thoughts and feelings of all. He denied that the uni

versal church prohibited marriages of this description.

After some further discussion, it was agreed, on the suggestion of Sir Robert Peel, that the debate should be adjourned to another day. It was then renewed by Mr. P. Borthwick, who argued that the proposed law was not inconsistent with Scripture or with morality. He was followed on the same side by Mr. Curteis and Mr. C. Buller. The latter addressed himself particularly to the disturbance of domestic relations which it was contended that this Bill would cause among the middle and lower classes; with whom unions between widows and sisters-in-law were both common and natural:

In the case of a cottager, what woman so fitly as the wife's sister could fulfil the duties of a mother? Neighbourly charity could hardly be expected to undertake such duties; and, although the House was necessarily without statistical details, there was no doubt that among country-people the marriage of the widower with the wife's sister was an ordinary mode of providing for the care of the children.

In fact, such unions could not be prevented: they could only be rendered injurious :-"Supposing the inclination to exist between two parties, what would be the consequence of prohibiting marriage by law? The parties would dispense with the ceremony altogether, and they would thus in a manner be compelled to unite without the sanction of the law. It was very unwise in the Legislature to require more preliminary conditions as to marriage than were absolutely necessary. At present, if a marriage of the kind took place in ignorance, the penalty did not fall

upon the father or mother, but upon the innocent children. In the higher classes, large properties and fortunes were often involved in questions arising out of such irregular unions.

He appealed to the laws of Christian Europe, and of the white population of America. He observed that the Bill would invade no privilege; whereas the prohibition of such marriages invades the religious liberty of those who desire to contract them. There was no extent to which opinion might not go with reference to what are called prohibited degrees. "Lord Coke had referred to a case where a marriage was annulled because the husband had stood godmother to his wife's cousin. [Laughter.] He had made a misHe had made a mistake; the case did not go quite so far, but the marriage was annulled because the husband had stood godfather, not godmother, to his wife's cousin. If any one had proposed then to alter the law, the argument of the honourable Member for Oxford, whom he could fancy living in that time [Laughter]-would come to this: he would say, 'Where will you stop? Here is a marriage to be allowed between parties in the tenth degree; you will very soon demand the legalization of marriages in the ninth degree; and there will be no ending till you come to the last terrible degree, which frightens all men, marry ing a man's grandmother."

Mr. Goulburn said, he would not consent to draw a distinction between the morality of the higher and lower classes; and he insisted that this Bill would create domestic dissension. He attached little weight to the petition from the parochial clergy, which emanated

from the clergy of the diocese of Norwich alone. He thought that the mere discussion of such a measure was erroneous, as it tended to raise doubts respecting the possibility of certain marriages; while much of domestic happiness was dependant on the known impossibility of some marriages and the indissoluble nature of others: the very legislation of 1835 had augmented the number of such marriages by drawing attention to the subject.

Mr. Brotherton supported the motion, and mentioned several instances of the marriages in ques

tion.

Mr. Vernon Smith opposed the Bill.

Mr. O'Connell thought it would not have a moral tendency; such marriages were never heard of in Ireland.

Lord Ashley said, that the practice of the Continent did not bear upon the subject, because there the marriage-tie was less strictly regarded than in England, and he cited the law passed by the Legislative Council of France under Napoleon, in 1804, which imposed such restrictions on the marriage of a widower and sister-in-law as to make it almost impossible. Lord Ashley asserted that the women of England and the clergy were opposed to the measure.

Mr. Charles Wood condemned the interference of the Act of 1835 with a state of things virtually sanctioned by practice.

Sir William Follett corrected some misapprehension as to the law of 1835:-"Such marriages had always been illegal in this country: they had not only been prohibited by the Canon law, but by Act of Parliament. The Bill of Lord Lyndhurst was introduced to