HC Deb 01 May 1931 vol 251 cc1930-8

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."

Rear-Admiral BEAMISH

The Bill before us is printed as having been amended by Standing Committee A. In point of fact, it was not amended by that Committee. I have certain doubts which I raised in Committee, but, as the report of the proceedings was not printed, I must ask permission to raise those same doubts again. Perhaps the doubts I have may be cleared up by the words in the Title of the Bill—"by marriage." There may be some legal definition of what exactly "by marriage" means. There have been two previous Acts, in 1907 and 1921, and this Bill refers to them, but I notice in all three Measures there is no definition of some of the words that deal with marriage. For instance, there does not seem to be any definition of affinity or consanguinity, but I notice that the previous Acts speak of sisters and brothers of the half-brother. Personally, I do not know what that means; there is no definition of it. I notice in the Debate which took place on the Bill in another place, that the law of affinity was mentioned by, I think, the President of the Divorce Court, and he said that the Bill would have the effect of destroying the law of affinity. I do not know what the law of affinity is. Perhaps the learned Solicitor-General will explain. The Bill, in its Title, says that it is to amend the Law relating to the marriage of persons with their nephew or niece by marriage. If hon. Members will bear with me and look at the eight examples in Clause 1, they will discover that Clause 1 will legalise, not only marriage between nephews and nieces by marriage, but will, in fact, legalise marriage with four types of aunt, four types of niece, four types of uncle and four types of nephew. Certainly, the aunts and uncles are not mentioned in the Title of the Bill. My only desire is to clear up the matter as quickly as possible, without going into the very complicated questions of relationship. The House may remember the ridiculous question that was asked by a man looking at a picture: Brothers and sisters have I none. That man's father was my father's son. and who then asked, "Whose picture is that?" The problem remains to be solved. I have never discovered the solution. In order to clear up my doubts, I will give a perfectly untrue story, on which I hope to elicit a reply, and so elucidate the difficulties. If the reply is what I hope it will be, it will prevent the possibility of the customs of marriage which developed as far as marriages even between brothers and sisters in Egypt and ancient Troy. The untrue story is as follows: I am a widower, my late wife was one of two sisters and my brother married the other one. They have a daughter who is thus—if the House will look at example No. 2 in the Bill—my deceased wife's sister's daughter. I wish to marry her—in continuation of the story—and may I marry that woman legally? According to the Bill, I may, unless there is something in it which exempts that form of what, I suppose, would be called a consanguineous marriage. If the Bill does allow that form of marriage, it will inflict an injury, and not a benefit.

I am not against the principle of the Bill, if it has that safeguard somewhere in it, or in the previous Acts I have mentioned. I would like to congratulate the promoters of this Bill, because I think that it is a good Bill, and that it follows on the other Acts, the Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act, 1907, and the Deceased Brother's Widow's Marriage Act, 1921, and that it will have some effect towards correcting the grave errors which were inflicted upon this country by the Reverend Dr. Malthus many years ago. The fact of the matter is that it does slightly, but, at any rate, noticeably, increase the opportunities for marriage, which is all to the good, bearing in mind that, with our population increasing as slowly as it is, we cannot continue to look after and control something like a third of the world. We want not fewer people and reduced families, but bigger families and a larger population in order, as I say, to develop and look after the territories which we possess in the world, and which we shall not be allowed to continue to possess or control unless we do carry out the principle of which I speak, and take no more notice of the reduction of population and of Dr. Malthus's schemes and principles. I should be very grateful for any information which the Solicitor-General would be kind enough to give On this subject, and I hope that he may clear up the doubts which I have tried to express.

The SOLICITOR - GENERAL (Sir Stafford Cripps)

I will not attempt a lecture on the law of marriage or an explanation of the difference between the law of affinity and the law of consanguinity, but perhaps the House will permit me to answer one or two questions put by the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Rear-Admiral Beamish). With regard to the Title of the Bill, perhaps the hon. and gallant Member will realize that if an aunt is about to marry a nephew, it brings in the nephew as well as the aunt, and therefore it is a question of the marriage of an aunt with a nephew. Similarly, an uncle introduces the idea of niece, and when an uncle and niece marry, it is both a marriage with an uncle and marriage with a niece, and therefore it is adequately covered in the title. With regard to the hypothetical case put by the hon. and gallant Member, who supposed that there was a widower whose brother had married the widower's wife's sister, that the brother had had a daughter, and that the widower thereafter desired to marry the daughter. It is true the daughter can be aptly described as the deceased wife's sister's daughter, so far as the widower is concerned, and she can also be aptly described as the brother's daughter, and there is nothing in this Bill to enable a widower to marry his brother's daughter, which is otherwise prohibited.

Rear-Admiral BEAM ISH

Where?

THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL

It is prohibited by the general law. The original prohibition appeared in the Prayer Book, and it is prohibited by the Act of one of the Edwards which gave Parliamentary authority to the Prayer Book. The prohibition is not removed except in the cases cited in this Bill, and in the Act of 1907 as extended by the Act of 1921. Where there is the double relationship as in the case put by the hon. and gallant Member, the prohibition would not be removed unless both relationships came within the degrees of affinity here cited, in which case the marriage would be permitted. Therefore, I do not think the hon. and gallant Member need be frightened that this Bill is extending the right of marriage to prohibited degrees of consanguinity.

Mr. BARR

Before the Bill receives the Third Reading, I should like to recognise the help we have received from Members in all parts of the House, and to acknowledge the help we have received from the Government. The hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Rear-Admiral Beamish) said that no Amendment had been embodied in the Bill. He was not, however, noting that a drafting Amendment proposed by the Government has been embodied in Clause 2. I still think that my own drafting was vastly superior, but with that loyalty which I always show to the Government even when their works are not quite perfect, I have put aside my own opinions and have agreed to the Measure as it now is. When this Measure was formerly before the House, we received a like cordial and consistent support from the former Government. The right hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Hacking) on behalf of the Government in this House, and Lord Desborough in another place, said that they had not the slightest objection to it, that the draftsmen had examined the wording of it and the various degrees of relationship, and had found that there were all covered. While the Bill has not been discussed at length in this House, it has been discussed very considerably in the Lobbies, and I do not know any Bill in regard to which a larger number of conundrums have been propounded, all of which, with one exception, have now been solved. The hon. and gallant Gentleman repeated that old riddle: Sisters and brothers have I none. That man's father was my father's son, and he confessed that he had not found the solution. Perhaps I may help him, if I say that the speaker was referring to his own son, and there was no woman in the question at all. If the hon. and gallant Member thinks of it, he will see that it is easily solved from that point of view. Another of these conundrums was, "Might a man marry his widow's niece?" The answer to that is that in Heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage.

For five years this Measure has been before the House. In six Sessions of Parliament it has appeared and been disposed of one way or another, and it is worth stating that from 1926 onwards it has always received a unanimous vote in this House. If it has not taken up much of the time of the House, it is not because it has not been considered, but because, after careful and full consideration, it has received, I do not say the unanimous assent, but the general assent of the House.

I am very pleased that we are pasing it at this time of the Session, when ample consideration can be given to it in another place. On the last occasion on which it went to the other place, in 1928, it did not reach it until 1st August, which was one of the last days of the Session, and naturally the complaint was made that it needed more consideration. The Second Reading was agreed to there, and His Grace the late Archbishop of Canterbury, in a very eloquent appeal, said, "Give us an opportunity of going further into this matter." That opportunity is now given with ample time for consideration, and I express the confident hope and almost the assurance that it will pass into law. Should it pass, I am confident that it will work well. The late Arch bishop recognised most handsomely that, though he would have desired that the Deceased Wife's Sister Marriage Act had not passed into law, and though he retained that opinion, he recognised the extreme fairness with which it had been carried through, and that that reflected much credit on the clergy, some of whom had difficulty with regard to it. I am confident that this extension of the former Acts will be dealt with in the same spirit of fairness. By passing it, we shall be removing an anomaly which has appeared in our legislation, and giving a logical conclusion to the Acts of 1907 and 1921. We shall also be doing a simple act of justice, not to any great multitude, but to a considerable number who feel, not without justice, that they have a grievance and a harship which to them is very real.

Lord EUSTACE PERCY

I am sorry to raise a discordant note in this Debate, and I hope the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Barr) will not be offended if I say that, so far from regarding this Bill as the logical carrying out of a principle, I think it is an example of that type of legislation which brings Parliament into contempt. In 1907, after a long struggle, the Deceased Wife's Sister Marriage Act was passed. Throughout that long struggle it had always been urged by the defenders of the Bill that it was not the thin end of the wedge, that a deceased wife's sister was in a peculiar position as compared with all other relations of affinity. Those who fought that proposal for so many years have since given up the struggle. They opposed the Deceased Wife's Sister Marriage Bill on the ground that it must be the thin end of the wedge, and that with that new element introduced into the law there would be no point at which we could stop, and that is the reason for the apparent unanimity to which hon. Members have alluded. Those who oppose this whole class of legislation have lost interest because they feel there is no logical ground on which to fight further Measures of this kind.

Let us see how Parliament is proceeding in this matter. Those who support these proposals, including my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Rear-Admiral Beamish) think they are carrying, out a principle. He spoke about a principle. The hon. Member for Motherwell spoke about the logical carryout of a principle. What is the principle; what is the only thing it can be? That there should be no prohibition of marriage with any relative of a man's wife, that the whole law of affinity, as distinct from the law of consanguinity, affecting prohibited degrees of marriage should be abolished. But instead of bringing forward a proposal of that kind, Parliament proceeds to produce a series of happy thoughts from year to year. Parliament dealt first with the deceased wife's sister, 14 years later with the deceased husband's brother, and now, 10 years afterwards, it is the deceased wife's niece or the deceased husband's nephew. And so we go on, nibbling away, and calling ourselves, save the mark, logical, wasting our time Session after Session in these little logical nibbles, and never having the courage to come forward and lay down the principle in which the promoters of these proposals really believe. Why do we stop at a nephew or niece? Why not a son or daughter? Why does not this Bill permit a man to marry his step-daughter? On what conceivable logical principle would the hon. Member for Motherwell resist it? My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes, who has left the Chamber, escapes from this dilemma by attributing to Mr. Malthus the invention of the prohibited degrees of relationship. Most people would agree that the history of this subject goes back to the time of another gentleman whose name began with the same letter but who, otherwise, had no particular relationship with Mr. Malthus.

He also urged this reform on the ground that it was necessary to an increase of the population. Apparently, there are a number of people who will not contemplate a second marriage unless they have the advantage of marrying a nephew or a niece—that is the one form of second marriage which appeals to the people of this country, and that without this Bill we cannot get a sufficient increase of population. Such arguments as those are enough to make anyone who wishes to base the law of marriage, above all other laws, on some reasonable principle a little impatient, and to throw into a state of despair anyone who wishes Parliament to increase its prestige in the country by dealing in principles and looking a little ahead instead of living from day to day and from hand to mouth, passing a few happy thoughts and making a few extra exceptions in order to meet a few hard cases that happen to have come about. I see that it would be useless for me to attempt to divide the House against the Bill, but I wished to make this protest.

Commander SOUTHBY

I would like the Solicitor-General to elucidate one point. I understood him to say that a particular case which was cited by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Rear-Admiral Beamish) would not come under the Bill by reason of some Edwardian Act of considerable antiquity. Where is there a reference in the Bill to any such Act? I hesitate to give further cases, but I do know, of my own knowledge, of a father and son who married two sisters. As a matter of fact, the father married the younger sister and the son the elder sister. Supposing the father has a daughter by this second marriage, and the son's wife dies, then, as I read the Bill, and as I think the man in the street would read the Bill, the son is entitled to marry his deceased wife's sister's daughter. He would be enabled to marry his half-sister. Quite clearly it is impossible for a man to marry the child of his own father, and yet it does seem to me that such a thing would be possible under the Bill as it is drafted. The Solicitor-General said in reply to my hon. and gallant Friend that that would not be possible owing to some other law, but where is there any reference in the Bill to the law which would prohibit a marriage of that kind?

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL

With the permission of the House I will answer that question. This Bill is only an amendment of the Deceased Wife's Sister Marriage Act of 1907, and that Act only purported to vary the existing law by permitting one special marriage within the degrees of affinity which was not permitted before. This Bill purposes to increase the latitude within the degrees of affinity, not logically, as the right hon. Gentleman opposite said, but by adding particular cases. It only permits marriage within those degrees of affinity, it does not touch the question of consanguinity at all. The position as to the prohibited degrees of consanguinity remains just where it was before, where it has always been, and, therefore, where a relationship is within the degrees both of affinity and of consanguinity this Bill would not, in my view, permit of marriage, because it would be prevented by the relationship of consanguinity. This Bill would only permit of marriage where there is nothing more than a relationship of affinity.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read the Third time, and passed.