MARRIAGES BILL.

HL Deb 25 February 1851 vol 114 cc896-996

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

The EARL of St. GERMANS

My Lords, not long before the close of the last Session of Parliament a Bill was brought up to this House from the other House of Parliament to alter and amend the Act passed in the 5th & 6th year of the reign of William IV., which relates to marriages within certain degrees of affinity.

Of that Bill I reluctantly took charge; I say reluctantly, not because I entertained any doubt of the policy or propriety of the measure, but because I felt conscious of my own incompetence to deal with the legal and theological questions necessarily involved in the discussion of it. It was at the request of many persons deeply interested in the success of the measure that I took charge of the Bill. It was in deference to the opinion of several of your Lordships, who thought that so important a question ought not to be discussed at so late a period of the Session, that I withdrew it. In withdrawing it I apprised the House that the subject would be brought under their consideration early in the next, that is to say, in the present Session of Parliament.

I was then in hopes that my noble Friend, Lord Ellesmere, would have been here to make the Motion which I am about to make, and to address your Lordships in support of it with all the eloquence and all the ability which characterise his speeches. Disappointed in this expectation, I have thought it right not to shrink from the performance of the task; and I have now to solicit your Lordships' indulgence while I state as clearly and concisely as I can the arguments by which I hope to satisfy you that you ought not to reject this Motion. Those arguments will doubtless be familiar to most of your Lordships. Many learned and able men have written and spoken on this subject; I, therefore, cannot hope to say anything new on this occasion, or to do more than lay before you in an imperfect form the result of the researches and of the inquiries of others.

I shall endeavour to show that the marriages which it is sought to legalise are not forbidden by the word of God; that they are not contrary to the law of nature (and by the law of nature, I mean those rules of conduct which God has enabled man to discover by the light of reason with which he has endowed him); and that they are not inconsistent with the interests of society. I might in the first place argue that the marriage law of the Jews is not binding on those who live under the Christian dispensation. That is a view sustained by authority of no mean weight. Bishop Jeremy Taylor says (Works, vol. xiii.)— But the next inquiry concerning an instance in the judicial law is yet of greater concernment; for all those degrees in which Moses' law hath forbidden marriages are supposed by very many now a days that they are still to be observed with the same distance and sacredness, affirming, because it was a law of God with the appendage of severe penalties to the transgressors, it does still oblige us Christians. This question was strangely tossed up and down upon the occasion of Henry the Eighth's divorce from Queen Catherine, the relict of his brother Prince Arthur; and, according as the interest of Princes uses to do, it very much employed and divided the pens of learned men who, upon that occasion, gave too great testimony with how great weaknesses men that have a bias do determine questions, and with how great force a King that is rich and powerful can make his own determinations. For though Christendom was then much divided, yet before, there was almost a general consent upon this proposition, that the Levitical degrees do not by any law of God bind Christians to their observations. I know of but one Schoolman that dissents. I find that eminent Judge, Chief Justice Vaughan, holding this language on this question (Harrison v. Burwell, Vaughan, 228):— The Levitical prohibitions are no general law, but particular to the Israelites. As they were delivered to the Jews only by Moses, they bind other nations no more than other laws of the Jews do, as the laws of succession, and inheriting land or goods. They then must be made obligative, if at all, to the generality of Christians by the New Testament; but by what medium can that be proved? Were it not for the Statutes it would be hard to make out by persons, of what learning soever, that we are obliged by the Levitical degrees; for we are not bound by the Judaical law; and how comes this part to be distinguished from the rest? I mean those of the Levitical degrees which are of the Judaical positive law only."—[2 Ventris, 16.] A much-respected clergyman of the Church of England has recently expressed an opinion to the same effect. The Rev. James Endell Tyler, in the evidence which he gave before the Marriage Commission, says (App. 110)— Now, I humbly conceive that the law of marriage, at all events as to the subject-matter of the present inquiry, is part and parcel of the political or municipal branch of the inspired law of the Mosaic dispensation; consequently, I infer that whatever be the interpretation finally affixed to those passages considered to bear on this subject, the passages leave the Legislature of this country at perfect liberty to make such enactments on the question put to me as shall seem best to consult the religious, moral, and social interests of the community at large. I own, my Lords, that I incline to this opinion; but I am willing to assume that the Jewish law of marriage is binding on Christians. Let us see what that law was.

Some learned men have held that the phrase, "uncovering her nakedness," signifies illicit intercourse, and not marriage. Mr. Fry, in a learned treatise, called The Case of Marriages between near Kindred particularly considered—a treatise which the pious John Wesley thought conclusive on this point, says— I have examined the Holy Scriptures with all the care and impartiality I am capable of with relation to this point, and I think I may venture safely to affirm that the phrase, 'uncovered her nakedness,' is never once used in Scripture for marriage, nor yet for the lawful use of the mar riage-bed, but a phrase quite contrary to it is there used in that sense, namely, spreading a skirt or garment over a woman and covering her naked ness. On the whole, it is plain that, for a man to spread his skirt over a woman, and to cover her nakedness, in the Scripture phrase, signifies the same as to marry her, as has been observed by many learned commentators (Dr. Hammond, Mr. Poole, Bishop Patrick, Mr. Pyle, and others). And to uncover her nakedness is the reverse of it, and is put for something that is a cause for breaking or dissolving of marriage; and, when it is used for carnal knowledge, always (if I mistake not) adultery or fornication is to be understood by it. I shall not, however, insist on this view of the case, but will assume that marriage is intended by the phrase in question.

I proceed, then, to the consideration of the 18th and 20th chapters of Leviticus, which contain the whole marriage code delivered by Moses to the Jews, excepting the injunction in Deuteronomy, chap. xxv. ver. 5–10, directing the brother of a man dying childless to marry his widow.

The 18th chapter opens by a declaration of the will of God, that the Israelites shall not do after the doings of the Egyptians, or after the doings of the Canaanites.

It proceeds (ver. 6) to prohibit the uncovering of nakedness in certain cases. First, in that of near kindred. The full meaning of the original is said not to be conveyed by these words. Mr. Fry says, that the Hebrew words signify one that is flesh of the same flesh; and he quotes Bishop Kidder and Bishop Patrick, who think that they should be rendered "remainder of his flesh." Dr. Pusey's translation of them is "flesh of his flesh." The old English Bibles, viz. Tindal's, Matthews's, and the Great Bible, give "nearest kindred;" in short, all Hebrew scholars admit that very near kindred only is here spoken of.

In the 21st chapter of Leviticus and the 2nd verse, we find the term, "his kin that is near unto him," thus defined, "his mother, and his father, and his son, and his daughter, and his sister, a virgin that is nigh unto him."

Other cases, in which marriage is unlawful, are then specified.

In the 18th and 20th chapters of Leviticus, 16 degrees of relationship are enumerated within which marriage may not be contracted—8 of consanguinity, 8 of affinity. In the table of prohibited degrees, which has now force of law, 30 degrees are enumerated. Whence this discrepancy? My Lords, Archbishop Parker, who framed this table, and the Convocation of 1603, by which it was adopted, chose to consider that, by parity of reasoning, marriage is forbidden where there is parity of degree. They, therefore, held that, because a man may not marry his brother's widow, he is not at liberty to marry his wife's sister. It is to be observed, first, that, in Deuteronomy, chap. xxv. ver. 5—-10, the brother of a man dying childless, is specially enjoined to marry the widow, "to build up his brother's house;" and that, if the doctrine of parity of reasoning he admitted, the husband of a woman dying childless is bound to marry her sister.

It is further to be remembered, that pa- rity of degree is here assumed to exist. A man stands in the same relation, it is said, to his deceased wife's sister as that in which he stands to the widow of his deceased brother. Is this so? Does a man by marriage contract a sort of consanguinity with his wife? Divorce was permitted in the case of adultery, even by the Divine Founder of our religion. Surely the divorce which enabled a man to marry another woman, dissolved the relationship between them; will it he contended that relationship subsisted between the man and his first wife's relations after it had ceased to exist between him and her? And if divorce dissolved the connexion, surely death dissolved it equally.

A case is put by Mr. Brown Westhead, in an able pamphlet on this question:— A. and B. are brothers, C. and D. are sisters. A. desires to marry C, and B. to marry D.; but if A. marry C, and if affinity and consanguinity are equivalent, then C. having become the wife of A., she has become also the sister of B. It is plain, therefore, that B. may not marry D.; for she is the sister of his brother A., and necessarily B.'s sister. He offers another illustration of the unsoundness of this doctrine in the following-example of its necessary consequence:— John, a widower, is the father of William; Anne, a widow, is the mother of Jane. John marries Anne. If consanguinity and affinity are identical, William and Jane have become brother and sister; for John and Anne having become one flesh, Anne has become the mother of William, and John has become the father of Jane. But there is no clause in the 18th chapter of Leviticus, nor in the table of prohibited degrees, which forbids the marriage of William with Jane. Hence, it follows that, if consanguinity and affinity are held to be the same, the table of prohibited degreees must be extended.

I have said that 16 degrees of relationship are specified in the 18th chapter of Leviticus, within which marriage may not be contracted. The same degrees are again specified without variation in the 20th chapter, which awards a particular punishment to the transgressors of each command; in some cases condemning the transgressors to death; in others, declaring that they shall bear their iniquity; while, in that of the man who takes his brother's wife, it is only said, that "they shall be childless."

I may here observe, that the learned Michaelis, in his Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, says, that this is not to be understood literally, but as a command that the transgressors of this ordinance shall be deprived of the honours of paternity, and that the children horn of this marriage shall not he accounted his, but his brother's. Is it reasonable to suppose that Moses would have left the chosen people to infer by a process of logical deduction what marriages were, and what were not lawful? Milman, in his History of the Jews, tells us, that the prohibited degrees were specified with "singular minuteness." Marriage in one degree is prohibited in three distinct cases: with the sister of the full blood; with the sister by the same father; with the sister by the same mother. In another degree it is prohibited in four cases: with the son's daughter; with the daughter's daughter; with the wife's son's daughter; with the wife's daughter's daughter. Marriage is also forbidden first with the father's sister, and then with the mother's sister. Why specify all these cases? If the doctrine of parity of reason be admitted, the specifying of each of these cases would have been wholly unnecessary. Again, is it not to be presumed, that if these particular degrees were mentioned only as indicating a class, there would have been some difference between those mentioned in the eighteenth and those mentioned in the twentieth chapters of Leviticus?

Michaelis has stated many reasons founded on the manners and customs of oriental nations, and especially on those of the Jews, why there should have been a wide difference made between the case of one degree of relationship and that of another apparently corresponding to it. But as these reasons, however probable, can only be looked on as conjectural, I will not detail them.

The marriage law which we are considering is a prohibitory law, and prohibitory laws must be construed without any latitude of interpretation. What is not forbidden is permitted.

But, my Lords, this is not all. We have the 18th verse to guide us in this matter: "Thou shalt not take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, besides the other, in her lifetime." Can words be plainer?

The accuracy of the translation is denied by very few. Every known version of the Scripture, the Vulgate, the Syriac, the Chaldee, I am assured, agree in thus rendering this verse. Michaelis, Bishop Kidder, Calmet, Dr. M'Caul, Mr. Goodhart, Dr. Eadie, Professor Lee, and many other Hebrew scholars, have borne testimony to the correctness of this translation. The verse then clearly prohibited the Jews from marrying the sister of a wife only during the wife's life, and left them free to contract such a marriage after the wife's death, when the reason for the prohibition had ceased to be in force. Chief Justice Vaughan says, on this point— A man is prohibited by the 28th Henry VIII. and by the received interpretation of the Levitical degrees, absolutely to marry his wife's sister; but within the meaning of Leviticus, and the constant practice of the commonwealth of the Jews, a man was prohibited not to marry his wife's sister only during her lifetime; after he might. This is a knot not perhaps easily untied, how the Levitical degrees are God's law in this kingdom, but not as they were in the commonwealth of Israel where first given. The Jews themselves never considered marriage with a deceased's wife's sister unlawful. For this we have the authority of Michaelis, who says (p. 119)— Marriage with a deceased wife's sister, he (Moses) permits, but prohibits on the other hand the marrying of two sisters at once. The words of the law, Leviticus xviii. 18, are very clear, Thou shalt not take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, besides the other, in her lifetime.' After so distinct a definition of his meaning, and the three limitations added: 1. As to the one being the other's rival (to express which, we may observe by the way that the same word is used, as in 1 Sam. 16, where two wives had but one husband; 2. As to the man's uncovering the nakedness of both; and, 3. As to the doing so in the lifetime of the first: I cannot comprehend how it should ever have been imagined that Moses also prohibited marriage with a deceased wife's sister—that very connexion which we so often find a dying wife entreating her husband to form, because she can entertain the best hopes of her children's welfare from it. What Moses prohibited was merely simultaneous polygamy with two sisters; that sort of marriage in which Jacob lived when he married Rachel as well as Leah. Again he says (p. 122)— The strongest and most decisive argument against the consequential system is drawn from the case of marriage with the deceased wife's sister. The relationship here is as near as that of a brother's widow, and yet Moses prohibits the marriage of a brother's widow, and permits that of a deceased wife's sister, or rather (which makes the proof still stronger) he presupposes it in his law as permitted, and consequently wished to be understood as forbidding only those marriages which he expressly specifies, and not others of the like proximity though unnoticed. We have also the authority of Calmet, and of all the Jewish writers. The present Chief Rabbi of the Jews in England says, in a letter to the Marriage Commissioners— It is not only not considered as prohibited, but it is distinctly understood to be permitted; and on this point neither the divine law nor the Rabbis, nor historical Judaism, leave room for the least doubt. It has been contended that "a wife to her sister," ought to be translated, "one woman to another;" but, as I have already observed, the best Hebrew scholars unite in admitting the fidelity of our version of this passage, and in rejecting such a translation of it. Moreover, it will be seen that the effect of a prohibition to take one woman or wife to another in her lifetime, would be to render polygamy unlawful; and we know that polygamy was practised by the Jews without reproof for many generations after the promulgation of the Mosaic law. On the whole, then, it appears clear, that marriage with the sister of a deceased wife was not forbidden by the law of Moses.

Was it forbidden by the Divine Founder of our religion? Assuredly not. Our Saviour never spoke of it as a sin. He forbade the Jews to put away their wives except for cause of fornication; thus re-restricting the liberty that had previously been accorded to them in this respect. He was questioned as to the marriage of a woman with seven brothers in succession. In speaking on the subject he did not condemn marriage with a wife's sister, any more than he did when speaking on that of divorce. The apostles are equally silent on this subject. Among all their warnings and prohibitions, we nowhere find one respecting these marriages.

But we are are told that these marriages were prohibited by the early Christian Church. Let us see on what foundation this assertion rests.

Marriage with a wife's sister was forbidden by the Roman law, and those Christians who were Roman citizens were doubtless bound by that law in this as well as in other respects; but there is no evidence to show that for several centuries after the Christian era marriages with a deceased wife's sister was held by the Church to be unlawful. In Riddle's Christian Antiquities, I find the following passages:— In early ecclesiastical writers, we find more frequent reference made to the Roman laws and institutions respecting marriage than to those of the Mosaic dispensation; nor was it till the sixth or seventh century that the latter appear to have received any especial attention form the Christian Church. After the lapse of several centuries from the institution of Christianity, the Mosaic pro- hibitions and other regulations were adopted with certain modifications in the Church."—[P. 109.] In a debate which took place in this House some years ago, a right rev. Prelate (the Bishop of London) referred your Lordships to the Apostolic Canons. The authenticity of those canons has been disputed by many learned men: that they are the canons of the apostles is asserted by none. Bishop Beveridge believed them to be of the end of the second, or the beginning of the third century. A later date is usually assigned to them, but taking for granted that they are of the age supposed by Bishop Beveridge, what then? The 13th Canon declares— That he who after being baptised, is involved in two marriages, or has kept a concubine, cannot be a bishop or clergyman. The 14th— That he who marries a widow, or one that is divorced, or a harlot, or a servant, or an actress, cannot be a bishop or a clergyman. The 15th— That he who marries two sisters, or his niece, cannot be a bishop or a clergyman. The 19th— That those who enter bachelors into the clergy, readers and singers, only do marry afterwards if they so please. Your Lordships will observe that these canons apply exclusively to the clergy, and that with regard to the clergy they forbid second marriages, and marriages with a widow as distinctly as they forbid marriages with a deceased wife's sister. It is well known that at this time celibacy was regarded by the Church as a purer and holier state than matrimony, and that marriage was therefore hindered and obstructed by all sorts of restrictions and impediments. Riddle, in his Christian Antiquities, says (citing Bingham), "That persons who had contracted a second marriage were incapable of ordination." Second marriages were declared by Athenagoras to be no better than "decorous adultery;" and third marriages were stigmatised by St. Basil as "no marriage at all," "moderated fornication."

Presbyters who married were degraded from their orders, and persons marrying for the second time were obliged to undergo penance. The Council of Eliberis was also referred to by the right rev. Prelate. The Council of Eliberis, or rather Iliberis (for I find in Mariana's Chronicles of Spain, that this council was held in the year 305 at Iliberis, on the site of which Granada now stands, and not at Eliberis, or Elvira, near the Pyrenees), was composed of nineteen Spanish bishops, and was a mere provincial council. I hold in my hand a paper containing an extract from these canons; but I will not read it to your Lordships, as I should appear to be seeking to throw ridicule on the subject. It is sufficient to say that they are characteristic of the age in which this council was held. The canon which relates to marriage with a deceased wife's sister only says, that the person who contracts it, shall abstain for five years from communion. And I would ask why this canon is to be looked on as more binding than the other canons of the same council? It cannot fairly be argued that some are binding and some are not.

We come next to the Councils of Neocesaræa, of Ancyra, and of Laodicea, the canons of which were sanctioned and confirmed by the (Œcumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451. By all those councils marriage, especially by the clergy, was discountenanced. The degrees of relation ship within which marriage was forbidden were extended by Pope Alexander II. to the seventh degree; and it was not till the pontificate of Innocent III. that marriages within the seventh and beyond the fourth degree were permitted. Spiritual affinity was also invented, that is, a relationship between the godfather and the godmother of the same child, and between each and the relations of the other.

Marriages within the fourth degree are still unlawful in the Roman Catholic Church, and require dispensation. It is, however, to be remarked, that the Roman Catholic Church has never asserted a right to dispense with any law of God; whence it follows that the Roman Catholic Church by granting dispensations in the case of marriage with a deceased wife's sister or niece, declares that they are forbidden only by the law of the Church, and not by the law of God.

Let me now call your Lordships' attention to what Chief Justice Vaughan says of the canon law, to which some persons seem inclined to pay so much deference. I quote from his judgment in the case of Harrison v. Burwell:— With the canon law, at what time would you begin? for it varies as the laws civil of any nation do in successive ages. Before the Council of Lateran it was another law than since, for marriages before were forbid to the seventh degree, from cousins-german inclusively; since to the fourth. Every Council varied somewhat in the canon law, and every Pope from the former, and often from himself, as every new Act of Parliament varies the law of England more or less; and that which always changeth can be no measure of rectitude, unless confined to what was the law in a certain time, and then no reason will make that a better measure than what was the law in a certain other time: as the law of England is not a righter law of England in our king's reign than another, yet much differing. So much for the canon law before the Reformation. Let us now look at our own.

Archbishop Parker in 1560 framed a table of degrees of relationship within which marriage was said to be unlawful. Thirty degrees were herein prohibited, fourteen of which are not prohibited in Leviticus. It was by virtue of the principle of parity of reasoning that these fourteen degrees were held to come within the scope of the Mosaic law.

It is worthy of remark, that Archbishop Parker, in a note written in his own hand on the margin of a copy of the admonition with which he accompanies his Table, gives the names of five eminent divines, Lyranus, Fagius, Pellicanus, Vatablus, and Brentius (three of whom were Protestants, and two Catholics), who "permit marriage with the sister of a deceased wife." I quote from Strype's Life of Parker. The Convocation of 1603 adopted this Table. The 99th Canon runs thus:— No person shall marry within the degrees prohibited by the laws of God, and expressed in a Table set forth by authority in the year of our Lord God 1563; and all marriages so made and contracted shall be judged incestuous and unlawful, and consequently shall be dissolved, as void from the beginning, and the parties so married shall by course of law be separated. It will be seen that this canon prohibits the clergy only by implication from celebrating marriages within these degrees, and that it commands the laity to abstain from contracting such marriages.

The Convocation had no power to enforce obedience to this command.

Lord Hardwicke's judgment in the case of Middleton v. Croft, has made it certain that no canon, unsanctioned by an Act of Parliament, is binding on the laity. I do not believe that these canons are binding on the clergy; many are altogether disregarded by them. Hear, my Lords, what a Prelate, now living, says of these canons. Bishop Short, in his History of the Church of England (vol. ii., p. 40), tells us, that— Many of them have been superseded by subsequent Acts of Parliament; and the hand of time, together with the change of customs, has rendered them so generally neglected as a code, that it is much to be wished that they were remodelled and sanctioned by a legal enactment. A dignitary of the Church held much the same language in the last century. I find in the works of Archdeacon Sharp this passage:— Now as to the canons in particular, I believe that no one will say that we (of the clergy) are bound to pay obedience to them all, according to the letter of them. For the alterations of custom, change of habit, and other circumstances of time and place, and the manners of the country, have made some of them impracticable: I mean prudentially so, if not literally."—[Vol. iii. p. 11.] If a prelate and a dignitary of the Church take this view of the canons, I may, without offence, say, that no argument against this Bill can be founded upon them.

The 99th Canon says, that this Table set forth by authority (I know not by what authority), expresses the degrees prohibited by the laws of God. Where, and how prohibited by the laws of God?

The 21st Article of the Church of England expressly declares that— When they (General Councils) be gathered together (forasmuch as they be an assembly of men whereof all be not governed with the spirit and word of God) they may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God. Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation, have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture. Can it be declared that these prohibitions are taken out of Holy Scripture? May not the Convocation of 1603 have erred, as General Councils have erred? I now come to the statute law. Your Lordships will remember that Henry VIII. married, under the authority of a dispensation by the Pope (Julius II.). the widow of his elder brother Arthur; that he had three children by her; and that it was not till after a union of more than 20 years that, becoming enamoured of Anne Boleyn, he wished to procure a divorce from Queen Katherine. Failing to induce the Pope to dissolve the marriage, Henry endeavoured to procure from the universities of Europe a declaration that the marriage was in their opinion null and void. In this endeavour he partially succeeded. Intimidating some and corrupting others, he obtained from many the wished-for declaration.

He then caused an obsequious Parliamen to pass an Act, the 25th Henry VIII., c. 22, dissolving his marriage with Queen Katharine, bastardising the issue of that marriage, and settling the succession to the Crown on the issue of his marriage with Anne Boleyn. In this Act, marriages within certain specified degrees of relationship are prohibited, and amongst those degrees is that of the wife's sister. Two years afterwards, Henry having put Anne Boleyn to death, and married Jane Seymour, caused his Parliament to pass the Act known as the 28th Henry VIII., c. 7, declaring the issue of both the former marriages to be illegitimate, and settling the succession to the Crown on the issue of his marriage with Jane Seymour.

In this Act the prohibitions as to marriage were repeated almost in the same words. The next statute relating to marriage is the 32nd Henry VIII., c. 38. This statute declares that— All persons be lawful (that is, may lawfully marry) that be not prohibited by God's law to marry; and that no reservation or prohibition, God's law except, shall trouble or impeach any marriage without the Levitical degrees. The Act of the 1st Mary, sess. 2, c. 1, declared the Queen's Highness to have been born in a most just and lawful matrimony; that the marriage of Henry VIII. with Queen Katherine in very deed was not prohibited by God's law, but to be taken for a most just, lawful, and perfect marriage, that could not, nor ought, by any man's power, authority, or jurisdiction, be dissolved, broken, or separated.

It is here to be observed that the legality of the marriage is not made to rest on the Pope's dispensation, but on its not being prohibited by the law of God. This Act has never been repealed. The Act of the 1st and 2nd Philip and Mary, c. 8, provided— That marriages made infra gradus prohibitos consanguinitatis affinitatis cognationis spiritualis, or which might be made void for any cause prohibited by the canons only, might be confirmed, and children born of such marriage declared legitimate, so as those marriages were made according to the laws of the realm for the time being, and were not directly against the law of God, nor in such case as the see apostolic hath not used to dispense withal. It also repeals the 32nd Henry VIII., c. 38, and several other Acts. The Act of the 1st Elizabeth, c. 1, revives several of these Acts in the following words:— That all other laws and statutes and the branches and clauses of any Act or statute repealed by the said Act of repeal, made in the time of the said late King Philip and Queen Mary, and not in this present Act specially mentioned and revived, shall stand, remain, and be repealed and void, in such like manner and form as they were before the making of this Act. The Act specially mentions and revives the 32nd Henry VIII., c. 38, and the 28th Henry VIII. c. 16 (an Act which made void all dispensations from the See of Home, and renders good all marriages previously made under such dispensations, unless they he prohibited by God's laws, limited and declared in the 28th Henry VIII., c. 7), but it does not specially mention or revive the 25th Henry VIII., or the 28th Henry VIII., c. 7. Chief Justice Vaughan, however, held, in the case of Hill e. Good (and in this view the Judges have, I believe, ever since concurred), that inasmuch as the Act of the 1st Elizabeth, c. 1, revived the 28th Henry VIII., c. 16, in which Act reference is made to the 28th Henry VIII., c. 7, the latter Act is by implication revived. I must here observe that for many years the Judges, when application was made to them to prohibit the Ecclesiastical Courts from proceeding to set aside marriages said to be within the forbidden degrees, inquired whether the marriage in question was or was not within the Levitical degrees, and not whether it was within the degrees forbidden by the 25th Henry VIII., c. 22, and by the 28th Henry VIII., c. 7.

In Moore's Reports there is a case reported in Law-French, which, as it is very short and intelligible, I will take the liberty of reading:— 33 Eliz.—En le case d'un mann qui fuit sué en le court Christian pour le marier d'un de ses wive's sister's daughters, et phibition (prohibition) fuit agard (awarded) quia tel mariage n'est phibite per le levitical ley. The same case is reported by Croke in these words:— He had married his wife's sister's daughter, for which he was sued before the High Commissioners: for although this was not prohibited within the Levitical degrees, yet because degrees more remote are forbidden, they gave sentence of divorce; and he grounded his prohibition on the 32nd Henry VIII., c. 38. And a consultation was prayed and granted because the prohibition is not to be if it be not within the Levitical degrees, and here it was general and therefore not good. To this case is appended the following marginal note:—"If the spiritual court impeach a marriage without the Levitical degrees a prohibition lies." In Lord Coke's First Institute, there is this passage:— By the statute 32 Henry VIII., c. 38, it is declared that all persons be lawful, that is to say, may lawfully marry, that be not prohibited by the Levitical degrees. A man married the daughter of the sister of his first wife, and was drawn in question in the Ecclesiastical Court for his marriage, alledging the same to be against the canons, and it was resolved by the Court of Common Pleas upon consideration had, of the said statute, that the marriage could not be impeached, for that the same was declared by the said Act of Parliament to be good, inasmuch as it was not prohibited by the Levitical degrees, et sic de similibus." I may observe, in passing, that this passage gave offence to King James, by whose order it is said to have been expunged. It was, however, restored in the 9th edition of the Institute, and has ever since retained its place in that great work.

In the case of Harrison v. Burwell, reported by Chief Justice Vaughan, and by Sir Peyton Ventris, proceedings having been instituted in the Ecclesiastical Court against a man for marrying the widow of his great uncle, prohibition was granted by the twelve Judges, on the ground that this was not within the Levitical degrees. It is true, that consultation was subsequently awarded, but this was on account of a technical error, the word "extra" having been used in the pleadings instead of the word "contra," which is that employed in the statute (contra leges Leviticales). This is, however, sufficient to show that the Judges at that time considered it to be their duty to inquire whether a marriage that had been impeached in the Ecclesiastical Courts, was, or was not, within the Levitical degrees. Next comes the case of Hill v. Good, in which the Judges held, in accordance with the opinion of Chief Justice Vaughan, that the 1st Elizabeth, c. 1, by reviving the 28th Henry VIII., c. 16, in which reference is made to the 28th Henry VIII., c. 7, revived by implication this latter Act, and that the Levitical degrees spoken of in the 32nd Henry VIII., c. 38, were to be taken to be the degrees prohibited by the 28th Henry VIII., c. 7. This decision has, I believe, ruled all subsequent decisions; and in the case of the Queen against Chadwick, in error, the Judges of the Court of Queen's Bench held, in 1847, that marriage with a deceased wife's sister was included in the prohibited degrees, and that it had, therefore, been rendered absolutely null and void by the Act of 5th and 6th William IV., c. 54, to which Act I am about to advert.

The effect of this decision was to exempt from all punishment persons who having married the sister of a deceased wife, married another woman in her life-time. In 1835, my noble and learned Friend, Lord Lyndhurst, whose absence on this occasion I deeply lament, brought a Bill into this House to alter the law relating to voidable marriages. The title of the Bill introduced by my noble and learned Friend was, "An Act to limit the time for commencing suits in the Ecclesiastical Courts, so far as they may affect the children of parents married within the prohibited degrees." The preamble of this Bill was this:— Whereas the children of parents married within the prohibited degrees, are by law legitimate, unless such marriages be declared void by sentence of the Ecclesiastical Court during the life-time of their parents, be it enacted," &c. The Bill then proceeds to enact— That the children of parents married as afore said, shall be and continue legitimate, unless a suit be duly instituted for annulling the marriage of their parents within—years from the celebration thereof, or in the case of a marriage al ready had, unless such suit shall have been commenced within—years from the time of such marriage. I ask your Lordships if this does not show what were the intentions of the framer of this Bill? It is clear that Lord Lyndhurst did not mean to render null and void all future marriages contracted within the prohibited degrees.

Contrast the title and the preamble of this Bill with the title and the preamble of the existing Act. The title of the Act is, "An Act to render certain Marriages valid, and to alter the law with respect to certain voidable marriages." The following is the preamble:— Whereas marriages between persons within the prohibited degrees are voidable only by sentence of the Ecclesiastical Court pronounced during the life-time of both the parties thereto: And it is unreasonable that the state and condition of the children of marriages between persons within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity or affinity, should be ipso facto void, and not merely voidable: be it therefore enacted," &c. The Act then proceeds to prevent the annulling of marriages of persons within the prohibited degrees of affinity, which had been celebrated before the passing of the Act; but it does not—and I pray you to mark this—prevent the annulling of marriages between persons within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity: thus admitting that consanguinity and affinity are not, as has been asserted, one and the same thing: else why this distinction?

My Lords, I cannot tell you why the Act was made to differ so much from the Bill brought in by Lord Lyndhurst. I was not in Parliament at the time. My noble Friend, Lord Ellesmere, in a speech made in the House of Commons in the year 1843 (March 8), gives the following account of the transaction:— In the year 1835 a most important statute was passed under somewhat peculiar circumstances, and I may also say of haste and undue deliberation, materially affecting a portion of the marriage laws of our country. However, Sir, it is known to hon. Members in general that the main object of that statute—originally, I believe, the sole object of it was retrospective—was for the legitimization and confirmation of a certain class of marriages which had taken place within the prohibited degrees, and which, up to that period, had not been void, ab initio, but voidable by sentence duly pronounced in the Ecclesiastical Court. Now your Lordships will bear in mind that the 99th canon declares that they are void from the beginning, and that that canon, though it does not prohibit the clergy unless by implication from celebrating such marriages, prohibits the laity (which the Convocation had no authority to do) from contracting them, and says that marriages within the degrees prohibited by the laws of God, and expressed in a Table set forth by authority—it does not say by what authority—in the year 1563 (thus assuming that the degrees prohibited in this Table are prohibited by the laws of God) shall be adjudged incestuous and unlawful, and consequently shall be dissolved as void from the beginning, and the parties so married shall be separated.

Thus it appears that parties who had contracted a marriage adjudged by the canon to be incestuous and unlawful, were bound by the right rev. Prelate (the Bishop of Exeter) who now sits at the table, and by this House, in the bonds of an indissoluble union. I heard, I confess, with no small surprise, that right rev. Prelate, in presenting last night a petition to this House, say that it was against the Bill for legalising incestuous marriages. The right rev. Prelate used a term borrowed by the canonists from the heathen mythology (sine cesto veneris), and signifying an unnatural conjunction. The right rev. Prelate has thus begged the question. We who desire to legalise marriages with a wife's sister and niece, say that such a marriage is not forbidden by God's law, and that it is not an unnatural conjunction. But, my Lords, if these marriages be incestuous, why did he support the Bill which rendered them legal? The right rev. Prelate must admit either that these marriages are not incestuous, or that he rendered legal and binding incestuous marriages.

To return to the history of Lord Lyndhurst's Act. Lord Ellesmere goes on to say— But, Sir, in the progress of that measure another enactment was grafted on it (how it originated I cannot ascertain), which extended the provisions of that statute to future marriages of the same description, and rendered them no longer voidable, but void and null ab initio… The inconsistency of that retrospective confirmation and prospective annihilation was felt at the time, and after that prospective clause was grafted on it, the Bill was resisted almost to the death. But when it went through the other House of Parliament, hon. Gentlemen who felt the difficulty were yet persuaded to agree to the statute as it stood; but that agreement was made on a distinct understanding, which was implied by all who spoke, and acknowledged by most Members, that it was in consequence of the lateness of the period (August, 1835) that they consented to the Bill, and not on a full and due deliberation on all the bearings of it; and that something like a promise was held out, that at an early period of the subsequent Session a due reconsideration should be given to the subject. It appears from this statement, the accuracy of which has never been questioned, that Parliament was taken by surprise, and betrayed as it were into making this most important change in the law; I say most important change in the law, because previously these marriages, though voidable, were seldom or never annulled, it being necessary that the requisite proceedings should be taken by a party interested in the succession to the property, so that, except in comparatively few cases, no one ever thought of disturbing those marriages. It is to be observed that even now they are not, strictly speaking, prohibited. The parties who contract them incur no penalty, and it is only the innocent children who are affected by the law.

My late noble and lamented Friend Lord Wharncliffe, forcibly impressed with a sense of the evils caused by Lord Lyndhurst's Act, presented a Bill to this House, in 1841, to amend it. He stated in a clear and convincing speech the ground on which he rested his case; but he did not call on your Lordships to give the Bill a second reading. In 1842 Lord Ellesmere, then Lord Francis Egerton, asked the House of Commons for leave to bring in a similar Bill; but notwithstanding the powerful address which he made in support of that Motion, he did not obtain leave to bring in the Bill. In 1847 a commission was appointed by the Crown to inquire into the law of marriage, so far as it related to the prohibited degrees of affinity. The members composing that commission were the Bishop of Lichfield, Dr. Lushington, Mr. Stuart Wortley, Mr. Blake (a Roman Catholic lawyer), and Mr. Rutherfurd (the Lord Advocate of Scotland), all men distinguished for ability as well as for learning—three of them members of the Church of England, one a bishop of that church, one of them a Roman Catholic, and one a Presbyterian; and, I believe, with the single exception of Mr. Wortley, none of them in the slightest degree biassed on the subject. With respect to Mr. Wortley, I may observe, in passing, that he was originally unfavourable to the proposed change in the law, and that it was not till after a full investigation of the subject that he became satisfied of its propriety.

I will not read more than the two concluding sentences of the report made by those eminent men. They say— On a review of the subject in all these its different bearings, we are constrained to express our belief that the statute 5 and 6 William IV., c. 54, has not only failed to attain its object, but also to express our doubt whether any measure of a prohibitory character would be effectual. These marriages will take place when a concurrence of circumstances gives rise to mutual attachment. They are not dependent on legislation. We are not inclined to think that such attachments and marriages would be extensively increased in number, were the law to permit them; because, as we have said, it is not the state of the law, prohibitory or permissive, which has governed, or, as we think, ever will, effectually govern them. Such is the opinion of the Commission whose composition I have described.

In 1849, Mr. Stuart Wortley carried through the House of Commons a Bill, to render legal marriages within certain degrees of affinity. That Bill did not, however, pass the House of Commons till so late in the Session that it was not thought proper to send it up to this House.

In 1850, Mr. Stuart Wortley carried the same Bill through the House of Commons. It was brought up to this House; but, as I have said, it was withdrawn in consequence of the near approach of the end of the Session.

Your Lordships will remark, that these three propositions to amend Lord Lyndhurst's Act were made by men not given to innovation, but by men holding conservative opinions—the late Lord Wharncliffe, Lord Ellesmere, and Mr. Stuart Wortley.

I now pass to the consideration of the objections which have been urged to this measure on what are called social grounds. It is said that, if marriage with the sister of a deceased wife he permitted, the familiar intercourse that now subsists between a husband and the unmarried sister of his wife, will he put an end to. I cannot think that there are many men who, while their wife is yet living, would calmly contemplate the possibility of marrying her sister. I am sure that there are few women who, in their sister's life, would contemplate the possibility of marrying her husband. If there be such persons, no law will regulate or restrain their feelings or their actions. It is not because a young married man may possibly become hereafter the husband of a young unmarried woman, who is not related to him, that he is not thought a safe or good companion for her, but because such companionship would be dangerous to her reputation, if not to her honour.

That the present law has, in all cases, obviated the danger of familiar intercourse between husbands and their unmarried sisters-in-law, cannot be asserted. If religion, honour, and good feeling are insufficient to restrain a man from seeking to gain the affections of his wife's sister, no law will do it. That wives would be jealous of their unmarried sisters if the law were altered, I do not believe. They were not so when the law practically permitted these marriages. Then, it is said that, after the death of the wife, her unmarried sister could not reside in the widower's house if she could marry him. I do not think that, in the present state of the law, a young unmarried woman can, without risking her reputation, reside in the house of a young unmarried man, though that man be her brother-in-law. Indeed, as was once remarked in this House by the Archbishop of Dublin (whose absence on this occasion I deeply lament), if a young man and a young woman residing in the same house may marry and do not, it is to be presumed that they have no inclination for each other; whereas if the law prevents them from marrying, their living together will occasion scandal.

A more pitiable situation can hardly be conceived than that of two persons brought together by the death of one who was dear to both, both deeply interested in the children she has left, and thus led to conceive a deep affection for each other, finding themselves forbidden by the law, not of God, but of man, to marry. We are told that a man who marries the sister of his deceased wife converts an affectionate aunt into a harsh stepmother. Why? What reason is there to suppose that she will be less affectionate and kind to the children as a stepmother, than one who is unconnected with them? However, my Lords, I will not argue these questions; for I feel that we are not called on to decide whether those marriages be advisable or not. The question is, are we justified in prohibiting them?

Many marriages are inexpedient. The marriage of an old man with a young girl, of an old woman with a youth, of a man who has a family of daughters with a woman of bad character, and many others; but the law does not interfere to prevent them. If this principle were admitted, we might be called on to re-enact sumptuary laws, and to limit the expenditure of every man according to his means.

I will now proceed to lay before your Lordships some statistical information on the subject.

Some doubts having been expressed as to the accuracy of the statements made in the House of Commons, of the number of those marriages, considerable pains have been taken to verify these statements.

Respectable and trustworthy persons, one of them a barrister, whom I have myself seen, have been employed for this purpose. The result of their inquiries is, that in two districts (one of these the metropolis and its suburbs) and that in a very short time, there were discovered 850 of these marriages; of 143 of these the dates had not been ascertained; but it appeared that 84 had been celebrated between 1835 and 1840; 142 between 1840 and 1845; and between 1845 and 1850, 202; showing a rapid increase in the number of those marriages, and proving that public feeling is not with the law.

In the second district, which comprises the Potteries, and which contains a population of about 500,000, 625 cases had been discovered in a very short time, exclusive of several in respect to which it had not been possible to institute minute inquiries. Of this number 165 had been contracted before 1835; 93 between 1835 and 1839 inclusive, or about 24 per annum; in the next five years, from 1840 to 1845, the number rose-to 150 or about 30 per annum; in the quinquennial period between 1845 and 1850 there were 173, or about 35 per annum; and in the year 1850 there were 41. Here again we see a regular increase in the number of these marriages.

It was, I believe, asserted, that one case only of this description existed in the parish of St. Margaret's, Westminster. I hold in my hand a list of no fewer than 28 cases in that parish. The names and addresses of the parties are given in this list, so that any one who wishes may satisfy himself as to its accuracy. These marriages have been contracted by persons in every class, from the highest to the lowest, and by moral and religious persons who would be as unwilling to violate the law of God as any of your Lordships.

I do not say that those who knew what the legal consequences of their acts would be have a right to expect the Legislature to alter the law, because it injuriously affects them; but I do say that the fact that a number of moral and religious persons conversant with the Scriptures, contract these marriages is a strong argument in favour of a modification of the existing law.

Then, my Lords, I ask you to consider the view which is taken of this question by moral and religious persons not affected by the law.

In the Appendix to the Report of the Marriage Commissioners, I find the evidence of Lord Marcus Hill, touching a marriage of this description, contracted by his brother, Lord George Hill.

The whole of that evidence deserves attention, but I will only read the following passages from it. He is asked— Have they been received in society on the same footing since their marriage as before? Lord Marcus replies— I have no reason to doubt it. As soon as they returned from the Continent, they came to London, and went over to Ireland. In regard to the reception generally given to my brother and sister on their return from Altona, I may add that Lord Winchilsea, who is Mr. Knight's neighbour, near Godmersham, invited them to East well Park, and that other neighbours called on her. Since their return to Ireland, every one, high and low, has been to see her, and many have expressed their strong approbation of their union; such as Lady Bangor, Mr. and Lady Helena Stewart, Sir James and Lady Stewart, Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Kingsmill, Rev. Mr. Atkins, Rev. Dr. and Lady Anne Hastings, Mr. Ball, Mrs. Otway, and many others; the common people approving highly, and some saying how wise George had been not to bring a stranger into his family. Does any one believe that the noble Earl here referred to, would have invited to his house a couple whom he believed to have contracted an incestuous marriage, or to be living in a state of concubinage? Does any one believe that the other highly re- spectable and estimable persons whose names I have read would have called on Lord and Lady George Hill if they looked on their marriage as incestuous? Would they have expressed approbation of their union?

Surely, my Lords, this sufficiently proves that persons who contract these marriages do not lose their position in society. In other countries, with very few exceptions, these marriages are permitted. In all Roman Catholic countries, by dispensations.

Cardinal Wiseman says, in his evidence given before the Marriage Commissioners, that these marriages are held by the Roman Catholic Church not to be prohibited in Scripture. "It is considered a matter of ecclesiastical legislation."

He is asked, "When you say unlawful, you mean unlawful by the law of the Church?" He answers, "Certainly." Then, the next question put is, "And when you think proper to dispense with such unlawfulness, you think proper to dispense with a regulation of the Church, and not with a prohibition of Scripture?" His reply again is, "Certainly."

There is, I believe, no Protestant country, except some of the Cantons of Switzerland, in which these marriages do not take place—in some with, in some without, a dispensation.

Even in Russia, where the established religion is that of the Greek Church, by which these marriages are prohibited, persons not being members of the Greek Church may contract them. It is true, as I have said, that the Greek Church prohibits these marriages, but it also prohibits all marriages within the seventh degree of relationship, so that a man may not marry his wife's second cousin. The example of the Greek Church will scarcely be held up to us for imitation. But even the Greek Church, though it prohibits these marriages as a matter of ecclesiastical discipline, does not look upon them as being forbidden by the law of God. For this statement I have the authority of the Rev. Narcissus Morphinos, the minister of the Greek Church in London, and that of Mr. Leon Melas, who formerly held the office of Minister of Justice in Greece.

I have already cited many authorities of great weight to show that there is nothing repugnant to the law of God, or to the law of nature, in these marriages. There are yet a few to which I must call your Lordships' attention. The late Bishop of Llandaff, in a published letter, declared that he saw nothing in Scripture to warrant the prohibition of these marriages. The Archbishop of Dublin, the late Bishop of Meath, and the Bishop of Lincoln, have made a similar declaration. The Bishop of Lichfield was a member of the Commission to whose report I have referred. I am authorised to say that the Bishop of Durham does not object to this Bill as being inconsistent with the divine law. I believe that I am justified in saying that the Bishops of Norwich and of Manchester look on this branch of the question in the same light.

In America these marriages are not only not objected to, but, to use the words of that great jurist, Mr. Justice Story, they are considered the best sort of marriages. That they are legal in America, we are also told by another eminent jurist of that country, Chancellor Kent.

Many dignitaries of the Church—among them the Chancellor of the diocese of Exeter, Chancellor Martin, and a very large number of parochial clergymen, not only look on these marriages as permitted by Scripture, but desire that they should be legalised.

Mr. Dale, Mr. Gurney, Mr. Villiers, Mr. Champneys, and Dr. Hook, men having the care of large and populous parishes, and mixing much with the poor, all speak of the evils occasioned by the existing law, and urge its amendment. Several eminent divines of the Presbyterian Church, among them Dr. Chalmers, and Dr. Eadie (the Professor of Biblical Literature in the University of Glasgow), hold marriage with the sister of a deceased wife to be permitted by Scripture. This is likewise the opinion of almost every Dissenting minister in England, of every persuasion. I have ascertained that the petitions which have been presented to this House for the alteration of the law in respect to these marriages, have been signed by upwards of 160,000 persons; they would have been signed by a much larger number, if so early a day had not been fixed for the second reading of this Bill.

My Lords, I say to the opponents of this measure, if you can show that the marriages which it is proposed to legalise, are forbidden by the word of God, that they are contrary to the law of nature, or that they are inconsistent with the well-being of society, you may call on the House to reject this Motion; but the burden of proof is on you. If you cannot show this, you have no right to uphold a restriction which produces so much misery and so much evil. The documents which I have referred to, prove that the law is ineffectual. Parties desirous of contracting these marriages, if they are rich, go abroad; and it is doubtful whether such marriages contracted abroad, are or are not legal in this country. If they are poor, they marry at home; or where the clergyman happens to know of the connexion between them, and refuses on that ground to celebrate the marriage, they live together unmarried. Such is the effect of the existing law.

I call on you, my Lords, to ponder these things. I call on you to reflect on the awful responsibility which you incur in maintaining this law. I say an awful responsibility, for if these marriages are not prohibited by the law of God, you take on yourselves to put asunder those whom God has joined together. Reflect, then, I beseech you, and if you entertain a doubt on this subject, give the House by your vote this evening another opportunity of considering the very important question which I have ventured imperfectly to bring before it. I move that this Bill be now read a Second Time.

The ARCHBISHOP of CANTERBURY

rose with much reluctance to address their Lordships on a subject on which he had far rather remain silent, and which he regretted should ever have been brought before their Lordships for discussion. Not that he had any doubt as to the line which he should take, or the opinion which he should maintain; but it was painful to differ from the sentiments of many excellent men; painful to oppose the noble Earl, who had introduced the subject with so much research and so much moderation; and painful to do violence to the interests and warm affections which were engaged on what he must be allowed to think the side of error. But he had a duty to perform, which he must not hesitate to fulfil. It would not, however, be necessary to trouble their Lordships at any length; the argument on which he relied, and on which he grounded his opinion, lay in a small compass; in fact, he considered that the question at issue had been decided for them, being already settled by the law of God. And surely it was no slight advantage that it should be so settled, and that on a subject involving so many interests, and exciting such strong feelings, as the subject of marriage, a line should be drawn for us beyond which we must not deviate. In a kindred subject, likewise relating to marriage, we had a like advantage;—in the case of divorce, how many vague reasonings and conjectural arguments were silenced at once by the single sentence of the divine law, which declared the marriage tie to be indissoluble, except only in the case of unfaithfulness? And so, on the question before them, it was highly expedient that they should be told by authority which could not err, where the conjugal relationship might and might not exist—where the ties of affinity and consanguinity began. This he considered to be laid down in the 18th chapter of Leviticus, in the interpretation of which he must be permitted to differ from the noble Mover of the Bill. That chapter began by condemning the practices of the nations by whom the Israelites were surrounded, as displeasing to the Most High, and not to be suffered in a people which He had chosen for his own—chosen to preserve His name and the knowledge of His laws in the world, until that fuller revelation of His will which was hereafter to be made at the appointed time. "Ye shall do my judgments and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein; I am the Lord your God." After this solemn beginning, the well-known prohibitions were enumerated. The principle was first stated, "None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him." Specific cases I followed which would violate tile principle; cases, first of consanguinity, nearness of blood, members of the same family. "Thou shalt not approach thy father's sister, thy mother's sister; thy father's brother's wife; they are thy parents' near kinswomen." Though there was no nearness of blood, there was that nearness of kin, which (as was known to Infinite Wisdom) would render such alliances, if permitted, injurious to the welfare of families, and of the community. Then followed verse 16th, which he considered to settle the present question—"Thou shalt not approach thy brother's wife." Between the sister of the wife and the brother of the husband, the analogy was so clear and plain, that what was forbidden in the one case, must clearly be forbidden in the other. No possible reason could be assigned why the brother should not marry the brother's widow, which did not equally forbid the sister from allying herself with the sister's widower. Unless they admitted the principle to which the noble Earl objected, and argued pari ratione, they were left with no principle at all. If they waited till the instances were specifically named to which the prohibition was to extend, they would find no exact prohibition of connexions which were most revolting to all our feelings. The father was not expressly forbidden to approach his daughter. Out of the thirty prohibited degrees, fourteen were specified in terms, and sixteen were left to implication and analogy. It was argued, however, by the noble Earl, that the effect of the 16th verse was neutralised by the sentence which followed:—"Thou shalt not take a wife to her sister, to vex her, in her lifetime;" as if the prohibition ceased with the life of the sister. But he need not tell their Lordships that the interpretation of this passage was so uncertain that no argument could be satisfactorily based upon it. In the text of our own version, the words were as he had stated them. But in the margin of our Bible, which was of nearly equal authority with the received text, the words were, "Thou shalt not take one wife to another." In the opinion of the best critics, there was as much authority for one interpretation as for the other. And it seemed to be a case where the judicious rule of Paley might be properly applied, who warned them not to suffer what they did know to be disturbed by what they did not know. They did know the meaning of the 16th verse—"Thou shalt not approach thy brother's wife." It could not be disputed. They did not know the accurate meaning of the verse that followed. In the Court of Queen's Bench, when a cause connected with this subject was tried, six different interpretations of the passage were alleged. Therefore what was plain must not be disturbed by a sentence of which they only knew that it was of uncertain and disputed signification, especially where the interpretation which he maintained was defended by the opinion of the Christian Church from the earliest times. He did not, indeed, profess to treat that judgment as infallible, or to assert that it precluded their taking the subject into consideration. The Church, though consisting of a congregation of faithful men, was still a congregation of fallible men, among whom error might possibly be permitted to prevail. But the concurrent opinion of religious persons and collected Churches in different ages and countries would never be lightly disregarded, or set aside without cogent reasons, more particularly when their decision was not in accordance with the natural bias and inclina- tion, which would be rather to relax than to tighten the prohibition. This appeared from the practice of some Protestant States of Europe in modern times, and from what had taken place in the Roman Catholic Church. The marriages in question had never been heard of in that Church until the 15th century. In that period of corruption the Pope, in the plenitude of his power as the vicegerent of the Most High, took upon himself to grant a dipensation to Emmanuel of Portugal, who married his sister-in-law, and afterwards to Ferdinand of Sicily for an alliance with his aunt. He maintained the principle, but in practice allowed it to be infringed, yet in terms which contained their own confutation: si urgens necessitas vel evidens utilitas postularit. Their Lordships would judge of the validity of such a dispensation. And with whom did it originate? Not with one who was an ornament to the communion to which he belonged—as there had been many such ornaments—but of one who was a disgrace to any Church; the very last example which a pure Church or a moral nation would desire to follow. He trusted that it would not be followed by their Lordships, and that they would concur with him in rejecting the proposed Bill. They were told much of the inconvenience and the many mischiefs which attended the law as it now stood; and no doubt it was much to be lamented that this or any other law, divine or human, should be transgressed. But the part of the Legislature must be not to lower the law to the standard of the practice, but to elevate the practice to the standard of the law. Very grievous mischief arose from all unlawful connexions, from the practice of concubinage, for instance; but we did not, for that reason, dispense with the obligation of marriage, or legitimise the guiltless progeny of a guilty connexion. He did not deny that there were cases in legislation when convenience or expediency must be considered; and when they might justly weigh the evils on one side with the evils on the other, and decide between them as best they might, whether "to bear the ills we had, or run the risk of others that we knew not of." But reference to expediency supposed the absence of acknowledged principle or settled law. When principle began, the province of expediency was at an end; and he held that, in the present case, they were bound by a settled principle and divine law, and could allow of no other consideration. On these grounds he trusted that their Lordships would hand down to their children the law of marriage in the same purity and integrity as they had received it from their ancestors. He should not trespass longer on their attention, but sit down with moving, as an Amendment, that the further consideration of this Bill should be postponed to that day six months.

Amendment moved, to leave out the word "now" and insert "this day six months."

The BISHOP of EXETER

*My Lords, in rising to express my warm concurrence in the Amendment which has just been moved, I may be permitted to say that I listened throughout to the speech which introduced that Amendment, both with unmixed pleasure and with a deep sense of the value of such a testimony, from such a quarter, to the high and sacred principle on which the most rev. Prelate rested his opposition to the further progress of this Bill.

I hope that the noble Earl will permit me to offer likewise my acknowledgment of the moderation and conciliatory spirit, no less than of the ability and research, which distinguished the speech with which he has on this night, for the first time, brought this measure before your Lordships.

My Lords, it is my intention to state, in some detail, the reasons for which I shall presume to urge your Lordships not to give your sanction to the principle of this Bill by allowing it to be now read a second time.

But, before I proceed further, there is one particular to which I feel it necessary to address myself in the very outset. The noble Earl has remarked, seemingly with some censure, on an expression which I used last night in presenting some petitions to your Lordships against the Bill. I called it the "Incestuous Marriages" Bill; and of this the noble Earl complains, as prejudging the question now before the House. My Lords, I cannot but rejoice that the noble Earl ascribes so much importance to that phrase—for, if the use of it be to prejudge the question, it is plain that he considers that, supposing the marriages which the Bill would legalize to be incestuous, your Lordships ought not to pass it into an Act. Now, my Lords, in using the phrase, I had no wish to prejudge the question—I simply used it as the only expression by which I could, consistently not only with my own convictions, but also with my own sense of my duty as a bishop, characterize such marriages. It is very true that the heading of this Bill is simply "Marriages." But as the Bill is not concerned with marriages in general, but only with a particular class of marriages, I could not satisfy myself, without specifying that class by the title which is given to them by the Church in which I am a bishop. My Lords, that Church, in its 99th canon, expressly requires that these marriages be adjudged incestuous. Was a bishop therefore wrong in so denominating them, when the Church in which he bears his high office expressly requires that they be so adjudged, and when the petitioners, whose earnest prayer he was presenting, did on that account implore your Lordships not to inflict so deep an injury on the religion and morality of the nation, as would in their judgment be inflicted by the passing of this Bill? I am sure that the noble Earl will not, on reflection, think there is any real ground of complaint against me, for thus acting and speaking, in conformity with the express judgment of the Church.

But, my Lords, after all, the noble Earl does not appear to have thought that I did any harm to his cause by thus prematurely calling these marriages incestuous. It gave to him an opportunity of urging a taunt against me, which I think that, holding his opinions, he was quite right in urging. "If the right rev. Prelate," says he, "does indeed consider these marriages incestuous, how can he reconcile that principle with the support, or at least the assent, which he gave to passing the Act of 5 and 6 William IV., commonly called ' Lord Lyndhurst's Act,' 'An Act to render valid certain Marriages,' which marriages he now declares to have been incestuous?" My Lords, I have no difficulty whatever in answering the noble Earl's inquiry, and in showing that my concurrence in passing that Act was not only entirely consistent with my considering the marriages in question incestuous, but was actually prompted and strengthened by that very consideration. It is very true that the title of the Act is "To render valid certain Marrriages;" but is it the effect of the Act itself to do this? Look into the Act, and see whether there is a single provision, or a single word in it, which has any bearing on such a point. My Lords, it is with all deference to the noble and learned Lords whom I see near me, that I venture to say, that in con- struing an Act of Parliament the first and main thing is, to ascertain whether the words of the enacting parts be plain, intelligible, and consistent. If they be, it is a matter of perfect indifference what may be the language even of the preamble, much more of the title. I hope that the noble and learned Lords will correct ma if I am wrong. [Lords BROUGHAM and CAMPBELL: Hear, hear!] I thank the noble and learned Lords for thus sanctioning the rule which I have ventured to cite. Well then, my Lords, if this be the rule of construing an Act of Parliament, let the noble Earl look into the statute in question, and see, I repeat, whether there be anything whatever in it which justifies its title, or the representation which the noble Earl has given of its import.

My Lords, before I assented to the passing of that Act, or rather warmly concurred in passing it, I deemed it my duty to ascertain that, if it passed, it would not have that effect which the noble Earl ascribes to it. On examination, I found that it did no more than protect the innocent issue of those marriages from suffering for the guilt of their parents. It effected this, which there is no man who could consider otherwise than a most satisfactory and gratifying result, by putting them in the same position as they would be placed in, under the law as it before stood, if one of their parents were dead. This, I repeat, was the full effect of Lord Lyndhurst's Act: it enacted that marriages already contracted within the prohibited degrees of affinity, should not be annulled by any sentence of the Ecclesiastical Courts, even during the lifetime of the parties; just as under the previously existing law no such marriage could be annulled after the death of either of the parties to it. Such, my Lords, I repeat, was the full effect of this much misrepresented statute. [Lord BROUGHAM: Hear!]

My Lords, I again thank the noble and learned' Lord for thus giving his high sanction to the construction which I have ventured to put upon the statute.

But it will be said—it has been said by the noble Earl—that I thus assisted in binding together, by an indissoluble bond, the parties in every one of those marriages, which yet I avow that I consider as incestuous, and if incestuous, as highly sinful. But here, too, I must again tell the noble Earl that he wholly misconceives the effect of that statute. True, it forbade the Ecclesiastical Court to pronounce any sentence annulling such marriages; but did it impose, did it recognise, the duty of such parties to live together in a state of sinful and incestuous intercourse? So far from it, that the highest Ecclesiastical Court in England, having occasion to comment on the effect of that statute in the case of Sherwood and Ray, declared that there was nothing in it which interfered with the existing law, further than I have already stated; and the great Judge who presides in that court, intimated pretty plainly and strongly, that if any such parties were proceeded against for incest, even though the statute forbade 'any sentence to annul the marriage, the court would nevertheless admit the libel, and award ecclesiastical censures, if the incestuous intercourse were proved. My Lords, you will find in one of the legal opinions given in the Appendix (App. No. 13, Dr. Phillimore), to the Report of the Commission on the Law of Marriage, that the learned counsel, who had been consulted, gave it as his decided opinion, that, if any such case were brought before Sir Herbert Jenner, he would act on the opinion which he had already declared—that it is competent to the Ecclesiastical Court to punish parties who had contracted such a marriage, with ecclesiastical censures, though the marriage itself could not be declared void.

My Lords, upon this point, the noble Earl will permit me to remind him of a case in the Reports of Lord Hobart, which is contained in an authority to which he has referred the House.

[The EARL of ST. GERMANS: I cited nothing from Lord Hobart; my authority was Lord Chief Justice Vaughan.]

The BISHOP of EXETER

True, my Lords; Lord Chief Justice Vaughan was the authority cited by the noble Earl. But in Lord Chief Justice Vaughan's Reports, and in the very case specially cited by the noble Earl, the case of Hill.v. Good (Vaughan, 322), there is express authority to show that a previous sentence, declaring an incestuous marriage null and void, is not necessary in order to sustain a libel against the parties for incest. Chief Justice Vaughan said— In Lord Hobart's Reports, I find that one Rennington was questioned by the High Commissioners for marrying his wife's niece, and was sentenced to penance, and bound to abstain from her company; but they were not divorced a vinculo matrimonii, though there was cause, saith the book, and therefore the wife had her dower, nor was there any prohibition in the case. My Lords, there is another leading case, the case of Harris v. Hicks (Salkeld, 548), in which the suit was against the plaintiff for incest, in marrying his first wife's sister. Pending the suit, the second wife died; and the husband moved for prohibition, on the ground established by all the Judges in James I.'s time, that, for the protection of the children, no marriage within the Levitical degrees should be declared null after the death of either of the parents. But what did the Court of King's Bench? Did it issue prohibition in that case, a case of incest? No, my Lords; it decided, that while "prohibition should go as to annulling the marriage or bastardising the issue, the Ecclesiastical Court might proceed to punish the incest."

Well then, my Lords, when this had before been the law, as declared by the highest and most unquestionable authorities, and when there was nothing in the statute of 5 and 6 William IV.—except the blundering title—which bore even the semblance of interfering with this law, what is there which needs excuse or explanation, from one who, like myself, holding, as the laws both ecclesiastical and temporal held and hold, these marriages to be incestuous, did yet concur, for a very grave consideration, in forbidding the passing of any judicial sentence of the nullity of certain of those marriages which had been already contracted, but leaving untouched their sinful and incestuous character—and still leaving it open to the proper court to proceed against the guilty parties who had contracted them, to sentence them to live apart, and, if they persisted in their sinful intercourse, to punish them even with excommunication? My Lords, in the thing itself no principle was violated, no sin was protected. But, on the other hand, a great benefit was gained—a very great boon to the cause of religion and morality—by putting an end for ever (as we hoped, ay, and will still confidently hope) to that anomalous and most pernicious state of law, which tempted parties to the most unhallowed unions by holding forth the assured prospect of security, so long as none were found to undertake the invidious and costly course of proceeding judicially to annul them. Instead of this, Lord Lyndhurst's Act (so, to his lasting honour, it is named) made all such marriages to be in future without any sentence of any court, absolutely null and void to all intents and purposes.

My Lords, if in meeting the noble Earl's taunt against me I have dwelt on this matter at greater length than would hare become me in vindicating merely my own consistency, I yet offer no apology for so doing: for I feel that I have thus been the humble instrument of bringing your Lordships' minds, and, it may be, the minds of others, to a consideration of the real character of an Act which has been made the object of more misconstruction and misrepresentation than almost any legislative Act which can be named. That misrepresentation has, in truth, been one of the most favourite and most successful expedients of the agitation out of doors on this very remarkable occasion.

My Lords, I turn to other matters dealt with by the noble Earl. And, first, let me advert to one of the many authorities cited by him as favouring his opinions—authorities, not all of them indeed very well known to fame—but the one to whom I am about to invite the attention of your Lordships, among the most eminent in the list of English Divines—I mean, Bishop Jeremy Taylor. My Lords, the noble Earl has repeatedly recommended this great writer to your attention—and he cannot too frequently recommend him. I, too, would venture to join in the recommendation; not on account of the passage cited by the noble Earl, the correctness of which citation I am by no means disposed to dispute—for I will frankly own I was not previously acquainted with it—but in order to lay before your Lordships another passage—a very short, but in my opinion a most conclusive, passage, as respects the matter of our present inquiry and a very large portion of the noble Earl's arguments. The passage to which I refer is as follows. It occurs in his Law of Conscience, b. ii., c. 2, where he is arguing against the prohibition of marriage between first cousins. He says— What better determination can we have of those indefinite words 'near of kin,' or 'the nearness of my flesh,' than the express particulars made by God himself in that very place, Lev. xviii? These, my Lords, are the words of Bishop Taylor.

[The EARL of ST. GERMANS: Oh! I know that passage.]

The BISHOP of EXETER

Indeed! Then I must express my surprise that the noble Earl did not take care that your Lordships should know it also. If Bishop Taylor be, as he undoubtedly is, a very high authority, I am confident that the noble Earl must be as anxious, as I can be, that his real sentiments should be known and accurately stated.

But I pass from this dead Bishop to a living Prelate of great eminence, whom also the noble Earl claims as a high authority on his side—one whose absence from the House the noble Earl has very feelingly deplored—I mean the Archbishop of Dublin. My Lords, we cannot doubt the sincerity of the noble Earl's regret at the loss of so very able and eloquent a coadjutor. But I too do, in some measure, participate in that regret; for, greatly as I should feel the power of such an opponent, I should yet have the satisfaction of making one or two observations with less of reserve if he were present, than I cannot but feel in making them, as I am compelled to do, in his absence: "compelled," I say—for my observations will he addressed to words written by his Grace, and somewhat ostentatiously pressed into the service of the present Bill by the introduction of them, and repeated reference to them, in the appendix to this report.

My Lords, in the absence of the most rev. Prelate, I will not make any remarks on the general tone and principle of his Grace's argument—tempting, I frankly own, as I feel such a subject to he. But from this I abstain altogether. The only passage on which I will observe is one which I cannot but feel as an unjust, and not very liberal, insinuation against all who hold, as I do, that "the allegations from the Levitical law"—so the most rev. Prelate writes—in other words, the prohibitions in the 18th chapter of Leviticus—are binding upon Christians. His Grace is pleased pretty plainly to imply that he does not believe we are sincere in holding this opinion; and he is further pleased to impose upon us what he considers the duty of adhering to the Levitical law in all points alike. Among others, in what is in a certain case commanded in the Book of Deuteronomy, namely, "the marriage of a brother with his deceased brother's widow."

My Lords, I hold, and I will not do myself the injustice of saying I hold sincerely, that the prohibitions of marriages in the 18th chapter of Leviticus are still binding upon Christians. I also hold that the compulsory marriage specified in Deuteronomy is not binding upon Christians. I will, with your Lordships' permission, proceed to say why I hold both particulars.

It has been customary, among all who have treated the matter, to divide the Jewish law under three heads—the ceremonial, the civil—

LORD CAMPBELL

The municipal rather.

The BISHOP of EXETER

The noble and learned Lord may very probably be correct in his preference of the term municipal. But he will permit me to use my own word civil; for I have taken it from the seventh of our Thirty-nine Articles, and I shall have particular occasion to refer to this article presently. I say then, my Lords, that the Jewish law is commonly, and with good reason, divided into three heads—the ceremonial, the civil, and the moral. Now, the ceremonial and the civil laws of the Jews were binding only for a time, and only on the nation to whom they were immediately delivered. But the moral law is of perpetual and universal obligation.

That the 18th chapter of Leviticus, containing the prohibited degrees of marriage, is part of the moral law, however certain, may yet seem to require some proof; your Lordships, therefore, will pardon me, if I briefly state one or two considerations for that purpose. First, these prohibitions are declared by the mouth of God himself. Six times in the course of this one chapter He says, in solemn confirmation of His words, "I am the Lord." But this, it may be said, proves only that this is God's law; it would be so, if it related to the Jews only. Let me, then, next call your Lordships' attention to the manner in which He speaks of His law. He commands Moses to speak to the people, saying, that they should keep His laws and His ordinances, and not do after the abominations of the Egyptians and the Canaanites, who had thereby drawn down the vengeance of God on their guilty heads. Now, what were these abominations? They are solemnly recounted; and among them are those marriages which the Bill now before the House would legalise in England. At the end of the enumeration it is said— Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things; for in all these the nations are defiled which I have cast out before you. And the land is defiled: therefore do I visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. My Lords, is it possible to doubt that this is part of the moral law? Could such awful denunciations of wrath be uttered against a people who had only not done according to some ceremonial or civil law, which had never been delivered to them? Well, then, if this be the moral law, and if we avow that we believe it to be, as such, binding on us and the whole race of man, must we on that account—as the Archbishop of Dublin says we must—assert that every part of the Mosaic law is equally binding in all times and on all nations? In particular, as is specified by his Grace, must we say this of the compulsory marriage of a brother with his deceased brother's widow? My Lords, that precept is found in the 25th chapter of Deuteronomy, in the midst of a series of civil and peculiar practices enjoined on the Jews, as a people to be kept separate by their customs and polity from the other nations of the earth. The very reason given for the precept proves this to be the case; it is, to keep up the family of the deceased brother, "that his name be not put out of Israel," and that the land allotted to him pass not into the hands of strangers.

My Lords, is not this then manifestly, and on the face of it, part merely of the civil law of the Jews? But, if this be so, I would ask the most reverend Prelate, if he were here present, not whether he is sincere in holding (for I am sure he is sincere in holding whatever he professes to hold), but whether he does indeed hold, that this precept or commandment in Deuteronomy is equally binding or equally free to all nations, Jew and Gentile, Christian and heathen? If he does, how will he reconcile such a tenet with his repeated subscription to the seventh article, which declares that— Although the ceremonial parts of the law given by God to the Jews do not bind Christians, nor ought the civil precepts to be necessarily imposed on any other nation, yet, notwithstanding, no Christian man is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral? My Lords, I hope that this question may meet either the ear or the eye of that most reverend Prelate, and that he will feel himself bound to state how he reconciles his taunt on us with—I will not imitate that taunt by saying, his sincerity, but—his consistency in subscribing the seventh article, while yet he thus makes the civil and the moral law of the Jews equally binding or equally free to all mankind.

My Lords, this matter brings me to what is the main question to be decided by your vote on this night—whether to admit or to reject the principle of the present Bill. Now, if the marriages which the Bill would legalise be Contrary to the moral law of God—as they are, if they be included in the prohibitions of the 18th chapter of Leviticus—then this House, as a body of Christian legislators, must refuse to give a second reading to the Bill on our table. I will, with your Lordships' permission, proceed to consider this question, and I venture to assure your Lordships that I shall be able to bring my argument within a very moderate compass.

The 6th verse states the general principle, "None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness." Now, what is "near of kin?" They are manifestly words which, if they stood alone, would hardly admit any satisfactory—at least, any definite—solution. The Divine Lawgiver was, therefore, pleased to give to us a rule of interpretation. In doing this He does not enumerate all the cases which fall under the rule, but He lays down certain specified degrees of propinquity, and leaves it to us to examine by them every particular case, and on such examination to decide for ourselves, whether it be within any of the specified degrees. If it be, such marriage must be considered as forbidden by the law of God, as unlawful, and incestuous.

Now, as respects the marriages which are the objects of the present Bill—marriage with a deceased wife's sister—and marriage with the daughter of a deceased wife's brother or sister—the 16th and the 14th verses are those which are to be specially considered. The 16th says, "Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother's wife." This is the degree of propinquity which is here forbidden, and every case which falls within this degree must be considered as equally forbidden. Now, it is manifest at once, that a wife's sister is in the same degree of nearness as a brother's wife; therefore, in the prohibition of marriage with a brother's wife, marriage with a wife's sister is included.

Again, the 14th verse—"Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father's brother, thou shalt not approach to his wife, she is thine aunt," equally applies to the marriage of the daughter of a deceased "wife's brother or sister," for the degree of propinquity is the same; and it might equally be said to the wife of such a husband, "He is thine uncle."

Now this last-mentioned degree is especially worthy of our attention; for it is a distinct declaration by God himself, that degrees of affinity are not less regarded in His law as impediments to holy matrimony, than similar degrees of consanguinity. It is, indeed, remarkable (and the words may have been used for this very purpose—that is, to point the sameness of affinity and consanguinity), that it is in the case of affinity only those words are added, "She is thine aunt."

The truth is, that this great principle is throughout enforced in the divine law in the strongest manner. The first positive commandment delivered by God to man, after his creation, was that man and wife shall be one flesh. It was again promulgated by our Lord himself—"They twain shall be one flesh." His Apostle declared the union of holy matrimony to be so complete, that it is a type of the mystical union of Christ with his church. It becomes us, therefore, to be specially cautious not to admit any construction of God's words which shall interfere with this great primal law. Thus much I have deemed it necessary to say of the absolute sameness of affinity and consanguinity, as they affect the lawfulness of marriage.

The noble Earl has remarked (and he indicated some surprise that I should assent to the remark) that the phrase to "uncover nakedness" does not apply to the conjugal union, but always includes the notion of turpitude and pollution. I fully agree in this criticism. It is sustained by the uniform use of the expression in all the places in Holy Scripture in which it occurs—upwards of twenty in number; and from this I draw a confident conclusion, that the union with a wife's sister, spoken of in these reproachful terms, is incestuous—cannot partake of the innocence, much less of the sanctity, of holy matrimony.

But there is another main branch of the subject on which the noble Lord has made it necessary that I should detain your Lordships with a few observations. My Lords, the noble Earl refuses to admit that all the degrees enumerated in the 18th chapter of Leviticus are such degrees of nearness of kin as render marriages of persons within them unlawful. He denies that they are to be regarded pari ratione, and maintains that those only which are specially mentioned are to be considered by us as binding; and yet, if this notion be sound, it will follow that marriage of a man with his daughter is not forbidden, for such marriage is not there specified, though it is included, pari ratione, under the prohibition of marriage with a mother, and, á fortiori, of marriage with a daughter-in-law. The noble Earl was conscious of the weight of this objection; but, to do him justice, he has devised a very convenient method of meeting it. He says that the nearness of kin of a daughter, though not specified in the 18th chapter, is expressly declared in the 21st; and that nearness of kin is there limited to a man's father and mother, his son and his daughter, his brother and his sister. Therefore, says he, the absence of all specification of the nearness of kin of father and daughter in the 18th chapter, affords no argument for the necessity of estimating nearness of kin pari ratione. Now, however, the noble Earl may triumph in this discovery respecting father and daughter, what will he say of the case of uncle and niece? There is, I repeat, no express prohibition of marriage between persons so related; but then there is an express prohibition of marriage of nephew-in-law with his aunt-in-law. Therefore, pari ratione, we conclude that the marriage of uncle and niece is unlawful.

My Lords, it is with unfeigned reluctance that I occupy your attention with a detailed argument 'on such a subject, but it is forced upon us by the Bill which is before you. I must therefore crave your indulgence while I deal with another portion of the noble Earl's argument—his interpretation of the 18th verse of this chapter of Leviticus. This, indeed, forms the whole strength of the cause of which he is the advocate. He says, as has been repeatedly said by others, that in this verse there is a plainly implied permission of marriage with a wife's sister after the death of the first wife:—"Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other, in her lifetime."

The noble Earl repudiates the version given in the margin of our English Bible, which would make this to be only a prohibition of polygamy. My Lords, on this point, and in accordance with the judgment of the ablest Hebrew scholars, I agree with the noble Earl; I willingly concur with him in not setting any value on the version in the margin. In truth, I understand both this verse and the verse which immediately precedes it, as recognising the permission of polygamy to the Jews; but regulating it by a prohibition against having two wives who are in certain de- grees of propinquity of kin to each other. The 17th verse is manifestly of this kind. It forbids the taking a woman and her daughter, or her son's daughter, or her daughter's daughter; and the reason given is, "for they are her near kinswomen; it is wickedness."

Now, I contend, that the 18th verse must receive a similar construction. Can it, indeed, be gravely said, that if a wife's son's daughter, or daughter's daughter, "are her near kinswomen," her sister is not her near kinswoman too?

My Lords, it happened to me to meet with a remarkable version of this text in a book to which we should not ordinarily have recourse for the solution of a question of Biblical criticism—the Reports of Chief Justice Vaughan. In the case of Harrison v. Burwell, to which the noble Earl has repeatedly referred us, we find this version of the 18th verse twice given: "Thou shalt not take a wife with her sister, during her life, to vex her, in uncovering her shame upon her," (Vaughan, 223, 241.) And, rendering the passage thus, Chief Justice Vaughan says, "I affirm this marriage to be expressly prohibited within the 18th of Leviticus," (Vaughan, 305.) Need I add, that the statutes of 25th Henry VIII., c. 22, and 28th Henry VIII., c. 7, do, in like manner, enumerate the marriage with a wife's sister among those which are there prohibited?

My Lords, not content to rest such a matter on my own very slender authority, I wrote to the Regius Professors of Hebrew in the two universities of Oxford and Cambridge, requesting them separately to give me their literal version of this controverted text. These learned persons complied with my request; and I was not surprised to find that their versions were substantially, and indeed almost verbatim the same. I will read it, as given to me by Dr. Mill, the Hebrew Professor at Cambridge:—"And a woman unto her sister thou shalt not take," (here is a stop equivalent to our colon, thus making the prohibition to be absolute), it proceeds "to annoyance,"—without any pronoun (as is indicated in our own version, where "her," after "to annoy," is printed in Italics), "to uncover her nakedness upon her, in her life." Now, much stress is ordinarily laid on these last words, "in her life," as if they necessarily apply to the wife, whereas there is nothing whatsoever in the original so to fix them; and there is much to make it most probable that they really apply to the super- induced wife—for so both the preceding pronouns manifestly do—and then the phrase would only mark an emphatic prohibition of such an union at any time—even during the whole life of the sister, whether she survive the other or not.

Such, according to these two high authorities, is the real import of the 18th verso of the 18th chapter of Leviticus—the text on which, above all others, the advocates of the present measure rely.

It is a positive and absolute prohibition of this special case of polygamy—" a wife to her sister thou shalt not take;" and two reasons are given: first, that it would cause domestic misery; the second, that, by reason of nearness of kin, it would be a defilement. Now, this second reason, I need hardly say, is equally strong against taking such a party, whether during the life, or after the death of the other.

With this statement of the real import of this much controverted text, given on the highest living authorities, I rejoice to relieve your Lordships from the tedium of listening any longer to what must have been a very tiresome portion of our discussion.

But the noble Earl has stated—and he has ascribed much importance to the statement—that throughout the New Testament there is nothing whatever like an approach to a prohibition of these marriages. I am well aware that this is very commonly said. But it is quite astonishing that such a notion should ever have obtained currency. Why, marriage within that degree of propinquity of kin, which pari ratione includes the wife's sister—I mean the marriage of a deceased brother's wife—is denounced in the New Testament in the very strongest terms. What was it, for which John the Baptist lost his head? For telling the tyrant Herod, that it was "not lawful for him to have his brother Philip's wife." My Lords, I am not ignorant, that Roman commentators are anxious to make it appear that Herod's was a case of adultery, not of incest. This is a point of great importance to that Church; for since the serious embarrassment which was caused by Clement VII.'s decision, that the dispensation for the marriage of Henry VIII. with his brother's wife was valid, it has been deemed necessary to hold that the Levitical prohibitions are no longer part of the law of God, but owe their force altogether to the authority of the Church; and yet is plain, that if Herod's sin, for which John the Baptist so openly condemned him, was the sin of marrying his deceased brother's wife, then the binding force of the Levitical prohibitions is recognised under the new dispensation; but all the three Evangelists who record this matter lay a main stress on Herodias's being Herod's brother Philip's wife. One of them, indeed, St. Mark, especially says, "for he had married her." It should seem therefore, on all plain rules of construction, that the sin was in marrying his brother's wife; but Roman commentators will not allow this. They say, and they adduce the authority of Josephus for the assertion, that Herod's brother Philip, whose wife Herodias was, still lived; and, therefore, that Herod's sin was his adulterous cohabitation with her. Now, my Lords, I feel that this is not a place, nor an occasion, on which it would be fitting to enter into a disquisition on such a matter; but I venture to tell the noble Lords whom I now see near me (Lord Beaumont, and one or two other Roman Catholic Lords), and I say it with great respect, that I am ready to establish my assertion, by proofs drawn from Josephus himself, that Herod's brother Philip, whose wife Herodias had been, was dead: he left a daughter; consequently, therefore, Herod's marriage with her, thus denounced by John as sinful, was sinful simply by reason of her being "near of kin" to him.

Thus we find that John the Baptist died a martyr to the great principle of the incestuousness of these marriages; and our Church requires us to pray God "to make us after his example boldly rebuke vice," especially that vice against which he faithfully contended, even unto death—the vice of contracting marriages which the present Bill would legalise.

But, my Lords, this is not the only part of the New Testament in which these marriages are condemned. The "fornication," Acts, xv. 29, named in the Acts of the Apostles, as one of the "necessary things" from which the Gentile converts were commanded "to abtain," is regarded by the best commentators as referring to the Levitical prohibitions of marriage; and the word is plainly used in a sense connected with this, in reference to the incestuous Corinthian, 1 Cor. v. 1, who had married his father's wife. In saying this, I am sure I shall have the assent of my Right Reverend Brethren near me.

My Lords, I again feel it necessary to apologise for dwelling so much at length on matters which I am well aware are not only unusual in this House, but can hardly fail to be distasteful. Let me, however, again plead in my excuse the nature of the Bill itself, the course of the noble Earl's argument (I am very far from blaming him for it), and, above all, the immense importance of the interests—the spiritual interests—involved in this discussion.

But do you, I may be asked, do you call on this House to decide on a matter of so much moment and so much delicacy, for reasons depending mainly on questions of biblical criticism? My Lords, this is the very thing which I wish you not to do; it is the very thing which I think you ought not to do. I would submit to you, rather, that your votes this night ought to be decided by deference to that authority which both the constitutional law of England, and the law of that Church of which you are members, require you to submit to— the interpretation of the Church. But the noble Earl tells us, that "the Church is not infallible," Very true. But neither is the Court of Queen's Bench infallible, nor even this House itself, when it exercises its highest attribute as the Supreme Court of Appeal, and pronounces a sentence which is absolutely irreversible. But is the fallibility of every human tribunal a sufficient reason for questioning the sentence which it pronounces? Has such sentence no authority, because it has not the authority which God's judgment only can have?

My Lords, the laws of both our Church and State have declared, that the Church hath authority in controversies of Faith; and the application of the law of God to the great question involved in this Bill, is such a controversy. Now, the Church, from the very earliest time to which we can look back—even from the second century, when the knowledge of the gospel was first vouchsafed to our forefathers—has always held these marriages to be contrary to the law of God. The noble Earl has spoken with some disparagement of the Apostolic Canon, which marks the Church's reprobation of such marriages by excluding those who may have contracted any of them from the episcopate, and even from the clergy; and, again, of the Council of Elvira, which awards sentence of excommunication for five years on the same account; and he adds, with an air of triumph, that neither the one nor the other attempted to annul those marriages. The noble Earl is quite correct in saying this. But is it possible that he has forgotten, that, in those days, the Church had no power to do what he thinks it must have done, if it judged of such marriages as the Church now judges of them? My Lords, St. Paul, in censuring that incestuous union, of which he says that it was too foul to be so much as named among the Gentiles, "that a man should have his father's wife"—even St. Paul did not pronounce a sentence of nullity, he was content to sever the guilty pair by the terrors of excommunication.

My Lords, during no less a period than the first 1500 years, the whole Church persisted in holding that these marriages are contrary to the law of God, and as such admit not of being made lawful by any human authority whatsoever.

At length, a Pope was found hardy enough to grant a dispensation to marry the sister of a deceased wife; it was in the case of Emanuel King of Portugal, who had married a daughter of Ferdinand of Spain, and, after her death, wished to marry her sister. Now, my Lords, who was this Pope who ventured on so unheard-of an assumption of spiritual authority? It was Alexander VI.—Alexander Borgia—it was that man—I recall the word, I beg pardon of our common humanity for so applying it—it was that monster in human shape, himself stained with incest of the deepest dye, as well as by every other vice which can pollute and degrade our nature—it was Alexander Borgia, who first granted a dispensation for one of those marriages which the present Bill would legalise in the gross. Yes, my Lords, Alexander Borgia it is, whose principle your Lordships are invited to make your own; whose legislation in a single case you are now called upon to extend to the whole compass of similar relations. Are your Lordships prepared to follow such a guide? to choose such a guardian of the sanctity of our English hearths and homes? My Lords, I may answer my own question—You will not.

The next instance of a dispensation, in a similar case, was that granted by Julius II., a Pontiff scarcely less regardless of spiritual considerations than Alexander; in short, the most turbulent spirit of the very turbulent age in which he lived. It was granted on the death of Arthur Prince of Wales, the elder brother of King Henry VIII., to enable a marriage to be contracted between him (I need not say a mere child at the time) and Katharine of Arragon, the widow of his deceased brother. My Lords, it is gratifying to know that this marriage was opposed in Council by Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, as contrary to the law of God, and therefore not admitting of a dispensation by the Pope. And this proves the accuracy of what I just now said, that, until it was rendered necessary by the refusal of Clement VII. to decide against this dispensation, the Church of Rome never pretended to deny that the Levitical prohibitions of marriage are still binding as a part of the moral law of God.

And here, my Lords, I must take leave to complain of this report, which I hold in my hand—the report made to Her Majesty by the Commissioners of Inquiry into the Laws of Marriage. My Lords, this report says— The question whether marriages within the present prohibited degrees of affinity were permitted by the law of God, was the subject of much discussion when King Henry VIII. sought to be relieved from his marriage with Queen Katharine. Now I admit that this was indeed the matter of some discussion; but that it was the question in discussion I most emphatically deny. The question really in dispute was, whether such a marriage, being contrary to the law of God, could become lawful by dispensation from the Pope. Almost all the great authorities, both in England and abroad, who were consulted on the occasion—universities, doctors, canonists—agreed in advising that they could not. The Pope himself was desirous of deciding to that effect. But he was, for a while, a prisoner to the army of Charles V., Queen Katharine's nephew; and, after his release from actual imprisonment, he was so much a slave to his own fears of that prince, that even the danger of losing for ever his influence 'over England was insufficient to determine him to do justice. In this state of matters, the king of France interposed; it was settled that Henry should submit by writing under his own hand to the judgment of the Pope, and that the Pope should thereupon decide in Henry's favour. A day was fixed for Henry's submission to be made: the day came, but not the submission. The Imperialist Cardinals availed themselves of the incident to work on Clement's pride, coupled with his fears, and to extort a decree against the divorce—which, when Henry's messengers arrived two days after, it was too late to reverse. Such is a brief statement of that event which exercised so powerful an influence on, at least, the time at which our Reformation commenced.

The same event had no less influence, I repeat, on the doctrine of the Church of Rome respecting marriage. It was bound to uphold the decision of the Pope, which was felt to be much easier to do, if it were disembarrassed of all question respecting the law of God. Accordingly, the Council of Trent contrived, without directly deciding that question, to satisfy or to silence the advocates on both sides.

My Lords, the noble Earl has remarked with some severity on the statutes enacted by Henry VIII.' s Parliaments to establish the Levitical prohibitions as the law of England; and he has ascribed them altogether to the varying humour of Henry, as he might wish to take this or that lady to be his Queen. Now, without wishing to set myself up as an advocate for any of his Parliaments, I must say that I think the noble Earl has, in this instance, done them much injustice. There were wise and honest legislators in those days; and the very statutes, on which the noble Earl remarks, contain proofs that Henry's passions wore not the rule by which they always framed their laws, even respecting marriages. For instance, take the statutes of 25 Henry VIII., c. 22, and 28 Henry VIII., c. 7; we can well understand that it might suit Henry's views to insert into these the prohibition of marrying a brother's widow; but what interest, except the interest of justice and truth, could induce them to include, as both those statutes do include, the prohibition of marrying a wife's sister? In one very important instance, indeed, the great statute "of Precontracts," the 32 Henry VIII., c. 38, Parliament enacted what was directly contrary to Henry's policy and conduct. That statute put an end to the impediment of precontract; yet, in two instances, Henry had himself used that impediment for his own purposes—one, in the case of Anne Boleyn, whom he was not content with condemning to death for her alleged adultery, but chose to divorce, bastardising her issue, by reason of a precontract with the Lord Percy—a second, in the case of Anne of Cleves, whom he got rid of, through the disgraceful subserviency of Cranmer and others, by means of some pretence of precontract which had hardly the semblance of proof. This statute, therefore, was certainly not dictated by Henry's passions; it proceeded from the wisdom of his counsellors; and I must say, it was a very important step in our Reformation. [Lord CAMPBELL: Hear!]

My Lords, we have heard from the noble Earl a warm panegyric on the distinguished persons who were Her Majesty's Commissioners for inquiring into the State of the Law of Marriage, and a very high commendation of the authority of their report. On this subject I must say frankly, that I never read a report more entitled to respect for the ability and high character of those who made it, nor less entitled to respect for the matters contained in it. My Lords, I do not attribute, I shall not be suspected of attributing, to those eminent men, anything like purposed unfairness or misstatement. But I cannot forbear saying, that I think their report indicates too plainly, that it was drawn up under a prepossession which made them see everything in a light the most favourable to the foregone conclusion which is embodied in this Bill.

I have already remarked on one, comparatively slight, instance of this sort. I proceed to others of a graver character. The report says— We find from the evidence, that marriages of this kind are permitted, by dispensation, or otherwise, in nearly all the Continental States of Europe. Protestant States on the Continent of Europe, with the exception of some of the cantons of Switzerland, permit these marriages to be solemnised by dispensation, or licence, under ecclesiastical or civil authority. Now, will your Lordships believe, that it appears from the evidence before these Commissioners, that in all the cantons of Switzerland, except that of Neufchatel, which is under the crown of Prussia, marriage with a wife's sister is absolutely prohibited, and no dispensation is allowed?

But this is not all. Russia, a country which we have been accustomed to consider of some account among "the continental States of Europe," is omitted in this part of the report, as unworthy of notice—its very existence is ignored, and is recognised only in a cursory way in connection with the Greek Church, in a subsequent part of the report. But Russia prohibits these marriages; and the authority of its example ought not to have been kept out of sight.

Again, there is the important instance of Prussia. That kingdom is indeed included under the general description of "Protestant States on the Continent of Europe." But when, as such, and as the chief of all those "Protestant States," its authority is claimed in favour of the objects of the Bill, it would, I think, have been well—it would have been fair—it would have been in accordance with the honourable character of the Commissioners—if they had stated what is the general law of marriage in this exemplary Protestant State. My Lords, not only is marriage with a wife's sister and a wife's niece permitted, but also marriage of an uncle with his own niece. Are your Lordships willing to follow the authority of Prussia in this instance also? Again, of another branch of marriage law in Prussia, the law of divorce, what will your Lordships think or say? Divorce may be had in Prussia, I believe in all cases, by consent—"Requests," as it is technically called. Now, it appears by the evidence appended to this report, that divorces, amounting in number to 7,800, occurred in three years. The number appears to have been of late diminished by official difficulties thrown in the way of these "Requests," not by any illiberal intrusion of stricter principles. The population of the Prussian monarchy may be computed at about the same as the population of England and Wales; it is, I believe, somewhat less. Now, just let us imagine in England and Wales 7,800 divorces taking place in three years, 2,600 in every year. Is this a state of matrimonial relations, to which we wish to bring the people for whom we have to legislate? Why, my Lords, the grave and virtuous part of the Prussian nation hang their heads with grief and shame, when they are forced to speak of these things. This is stated in the evidence, but it is deemed wholly unworthy of a place in the report. But can a country cursed with such a system of laws on the most important relation of human life—can it be fairly—ay, or honestly—adduced, as an authority on such a subject, without at least letting us know what is the general character of its own matrimonial code? My Lords, are you prepared to adopt the whole system of laws on this subject which prevails in Germany? Do not think you can stop with passing this Bill. The very advocates of the measure give you notice that you cannot. Among the letters in the appendix to this report is one, cited by the noble Earl, from my oldest friend, now no more—a Bishop, who was, in many respects, an ornament of this bench—the late Bishop of Llandaff: he tolls us, while he is in favour of the proposed measure, he should prefer a general revisal of the prohibited degrees to the more partial correction its promoters had in view.

I am glad to turn to another portion of the report:—"In Ireland, the great majority of the clergy of the Established Church are represented as disapproving of these connections." Why, my Lords, the evidence states, that in one diocese they are "almost unanimous" against them; and that in another, comprising three united dioceses, there are only three clergymen in their favour. Then, as to disapproving, how do they express their disapprobation? The Irish, we well know, are a highly imaginative and ardent people, accustomed to express their sentiments, whether of disapproval or approval, pretty energetically. We might be prepared, therefore, for the possibility of something a little strong, veiled to us under the Commissioners' euphemism—"disapproving;" but, even so, your Lordships will be a little surprised to learn what were the terms actually used:— As to the clergy, the proposition is, in general, not merely contrary to their reasonable and moral convictions, but most revolting to their feelings." "The attempt is unchristian, in the interpretation of God's law." "In Ireland, such marriages have been held in much greater abhorrence than in England. So much for the disapprobation of the clergy of Ireland. The report proceeds to say, "In Scotland the opinion of the clergy is decidedly against these marriages." It is very decided, certainly; but the Scotch are not so ardent a people as the Irish, and their adverse judgment may be expected to find expression in more measured words. We will see; and, in order to see most correctly, we will take the evidence of one of the Commissioners themselves—the right hon. the Lord Advocate. He first cites the Confession of Faith:— Marriage ought not to be within the degrees of consanguinity or affinity forbidden in the Word, nor can such incestuous marriages ever be made lawful by any law of man, or consent of parties, so as those persons may live together as man and wife. This is the law of Scotland. Now for the feelings of the people:— Such a marriage generally is held by the people of Scotland in very great abhorrence."—[Evidence Q. 1141.] My Lords, your Lordships will judge whether the Commissioners have fairly represented the feelings of the whole Scotch nation on this matter, as stated by their own colleague. Those feelings have been more justly regarded by the noble Earl: he has excluded Scotland altogether out of the operation of the Bill. In spite of the eloquent appeals he addressed to us respecting the law of God, the law of justice, the law of morality, which he tells us require that the existing prohibitions be removed, yet Scotland, it seems, is not a country in which those sacred considerations are to have any weight: they must be forgotten when we cross the Tweed—they are, after all, a mere question of geography.

My Lords, I turn to another part of this report, which gives me more pain and more astonishment, than any which has preceded:— Some persons contend that these marriages are forbidden expressly, or inferentially, by Scripture. If this opinion he admitted, cadit quœstio. But it does not appear that this opinion is generally entertained. "Some persons!" Who are they?—private, isolated individuals? Such the phrase would make us conclude them to be, and only a small number even of them. But if we turn from the report to the evidence on which it professes to be founded, we shall find that these "some persons" are public functionaries reporting to us the judgment of whole bodies of clergy in England, and more especially in Ireland—of the whole Presbyterian Establishment in Scotland—of all who own the Confession of Faith—of the law of England, and therefore of the State of England—lastly, of the whole Church of England, speaking in national synod, which is the Church of England by representation. The 99th canon, exhibited by these Commissioners in their appendix, but carefully kept out of their report, solemnly declares that marriages within the prohibited degrees expressed in the Table set forth by authority in the year of our Lord 1563, are prohibited the laws of God—are incestuous and unlawful. My Lords, the noble Earl does not assent to this. He contends that these marriages are not condemned by the law of God. I am sorry for it; I am sorry that he has deluded himself into a belief that he is more right in his judgment on this grave matter, than the Church of which he is a member. But I am still more sorry that such names as these which I see appended to the report, have assisted in deluding him. Above all, I look with grief and amazement at the first name in the list—the name of a venerable and excellent Bishop. My Lords, I am unable to account for the appearance of that name in such a document, on any ground which I can understand. I rejoice indeed to perceive, that the right rev. Prelate seems to have had very little to do in the proceedings of the Commissioners—that he was present at the examination of witnesses only twice, and that the occasions on which he was present were not among the most important. Still there is his name affixed to the report. He has thus given to that report the sanction of his high authority. Yet surely, before he did this, we had a right to expect, that, considering the solemn nature of the subject, he would have weighed well every proposition, and scrutinized every principle, which it set forth.

My Lords, I am glad to turn from so painful a subject to one scarcely indeed less painful. The noble Earl has cited, with high commendation, a sentence of the report, which, notwithstanding his commendation, I must take leave to say, is, in my judgment, most contrary to sound principle, most mischievous, most corrupting. "These marriages," says the report, and the noble Lord applauds the saying— These marriages will take place—will take place when a concurrence of circumstances give rise to mutual attachment; they are not dependent on legislation." "It is not the state of the law, prohibitory or permissive, which has governed, or, as we think, ever will effectually govern them. Why, my Lords, what is the meaning of this, but to give up the reins to the sexual passions altogether, to say that they are beyond the reach and control of any moral restraint? And this is the well-weighed counsel of grave and honourable men—the summary of their judgment, after serious and extensive research—delivered to their Sovereign, as the principle by which Her Majesty and Parliament are to direct their legislation on the most important of all the relations of social life ! My Lords, it is some little relief to read a contradiction of this polluting doctrine in the very page of the report which immediately precedes it. There the Commissioners tells us, that, although in some cases these connexions will take place, "because no natural repugnance to them exists," yet they are prevented, more or less, by two con- siderations, namely, when a belief exists that such an union is opposed to Divine law; and where there is a strong conviction that it is against the opinion of friends and of society, and a great desire to retain their good opinion. So, then, we see by the authority of these Commissioners, that moral restraint does operate to prevent these marriages—restraint, however, which it is the practical tendency of this report altogether to remove.

But we have not merely the authority of the Commissioners for the efficacy of moral restraint in these cases, but an authority which we have sometimes found to be still better—that of their witnesses. I am unwilling to weary your Lordships with a detail of the cases of individuals; but there is one case, on this part of our subject, which I read myself with so much respect, and, I must say, so much pity for the parties, that I scruple not to refer to it in some detail. It is the case of an officer in the service of the East India Company, who tolls us that he became warmly attached to his deceased wife's sister; and yet, my Lords, he was not so much the slave of his passion, as not to inquire, anxiously inquire, whether he could innocently, conscientiously, marry the object of his affections. My Lords, I grieve to read the answer of this gentleman to one of the questions put to him— Of all the clerical opinions you obtained, there was none against the marriage upon scriptural grounds?—None whatever. I think a decidedly clerical opinion against it, from competent authority, would have deterred me, if backed by other competent authority—what I mean is, that were the Church"— (he shows the importance he ascribes to the authority of the Church by printing the words in Roman capitals)— were the Church unanimous in declaring such a marriage contrary to God's law, both my wife and I would have bowed to such a decision. My Lords, I am sorry to find that this Christian gentleman had recourse to so very bad spiritual advisers. A faithful minister would have told him, that the very authority which he sought, the Church in national synod, the Church of England by representation, had solemnly pronounced the marriage which he meditated unlawful and incestuous. Had such faithful advice been given, in one instance at least, incest would have been prevented.

My Lords, I will not trouble you with other cases of individuals. But I will show from the evidence appended to the report, that even in whole nations the restraint of religious and moral considerations, when honestly suffered to have their due weight, are effectual. My Lords, in Ireland such considerations have produced a strong abhorrence of the marriages which this Bill would legalise—in Scotland a still stronger, If we look to the vast empire of Russia and to its enormous population, we see this abhorrence still growing in intensity—ay, and throughout the whole extent of the Greek Church, and of the communions which have branched from it—a reach of country scarcely less extensive than the whole of the rest of Christendom—the feeling is the same. My Lords, the noble Earl has spoken disparagingly of the Greek Church—I cannot partake of his sentiments in this respect—I regard that Church not only as a very large, but as a most venerable portion of the Church Catholic, infected indeed with errors, but with errors by no means fatal—a Church worthy of our especial attention, as conveying and attesting to us the traditional judgment formed by the whole Church of Christ on this subject before the unhappy schism which rent Christendom in twain.

My Lords—one single word more of this report. In it, the Commissioners tell us, in a passage which I have already cited, that there is "no natural repugnance to such connexions." Now what are we to understand by natural? Do they mean by the word, that which is a necessary part of the nature of man, as he is man? If so, I fully assent to their proposition. For, in this sense, I know not whether any or what connexion is contrary to man's nature. I may indeed hope, and I do hope, that the union of parent and child is so: but certainly I cannot go a step further. The union of brothers and sisters cannot he contrary to the nature of man, as man: for we know that the world was peopled originally through such unions. My Lords, I hold that the true and sound way of speaking of our nature, in connexion with such matters, is to consider it as that moral sense by which the Divine Author of nature has made man capable of having his practical convictions moulded by the working of sound law, virtuous education, above all, pure religion. This second nature it is, that we are bound to mean, when we talk, with these Commissioners, of natural repugnance to certain connexions—and this second nature ought to be formed by those very conditions, which their premises affirm and their conclusion denies.

My Lords, before I conclude, I must take some notice—it shall be but brief—of the structure and provisions of the Bill itself. That Bill is, I believe, the most extraordinary specimen of legislation ever offered to Parliament. Its object—its principle—its effect—is, to make marriages with a wife's sister or niece lawful, because they are not forbidden by the law of God. I say this, for I do not suppose it possible, that if the noble Earl really thought them contrary to the Divine Law, he would attempt to legalise them. In truth, the main argument of the noble Earl this night has been, to convince you that they are not contrary to that law. Well then, what shall we say of the 3rd Clause? It runs thus:— That nothing in this Act contained shall be deemed or construed to alter or affect any Doctrine, Canon, or Law Ecclesiastical of the Church of England," &c. What doctrine of the Church is there on the matter? The doctrine contained in the 99th Canon, that these marriages are "prohibited by the laws of God," are "incestuous and unlawful:" and this doctrine it seems is not to be in anywise affected by the Bill which would make them lawful; we are still to hold as true, that these marriages are contrary to the law of God, even while we refuse to suffer them any longer to be contrary to the law of England.

So much for doctrine. Now let us look at the canon. It enjoins that all such marriages "shall be adjudged incestuous, and, consequently, shall be dissolved as void from the beginning." The Bill, when it shall become an Act, is to be deemed and construed not in anywise to alter or affect this canon; and yet the very principle of the Bill, its one sole proclaimed end and purpose, is, that no such marriage shall "hereafter he annulled or pronounced void."

So much for "canon." Now, for "law ecclesiastical." The law ecclesiastical is, that no minister shall, under the gravest spiritual censures, solemnize any of these marriages. Nothing in the Bill is to be construed in anywise to affect this law; and yet it is provided, that, if there be any liberal clergyman bold enough to set it at defiance, he shall not be subject for so doing to any censure or punishment whatever.

But I will waste no more of your Lord- ships' time in dealing with such a tissue of crudities, absurdities, and contradictions.

My Lords, in conclusion, permit me to say something on the last part of the noble Earl's speech. He called on your Lordships, with great gravity and great eloquence, to ponder the considerations which he brought before you—to pause before you give your votes this night—to weigh well the awful responsibility of maintaining the present law—and, if any of you have a doubt, to give him the benefit of that doubt.

My Lords, I assent, from the bottom of my soul, to what the noble Earl has said of the awful responsibility which must attach to the vote of this night; and to those who doubt what vote to give, I, too, would venture to submit a very few words. With this view, permit me briefly to remind the House what it can do, and what it cannot do.

My Lords, this House may pass the Bill; it may prevail with the other House to join in passing it—it may procure the Royal assent to its becoming part of the law of the land. This, my Lords, this House may do, and something more; it may draw down the wrath of God upon ourselves, upon our country, upon our Queen—by daring to do—what, if the Church, of which most of your Lordships profess to be members, tells us truly, we shall do: for we shall set at nought the express law of God. Now, my Lords, while this House can do all this, there remains one thing which it cannot do—it cannot make sin to be not sin—incest to be not incest.

Refrain, therefore, I implore you, from going further with this ill-judged measure; touch not these prohibitions, which the Bill before us would remove: "if they be," as all Christendom before the Council of Trent believed them to be—as our own reformed Church, I again say, still believes them to be—" of God—ye cannot overthrow them—lest haply ye be found, even to fight against God."

The BISHOP of ST. DAVID'S

said, if he could have assented wholly and unreservedly to the statements either of the noble Earl or of the most rev. and right rev. Prelates who had preceded him, he might not have thought it necessary or desirable to take any part in the debate, but might have been contented with giving a silent vote according to his conviction; but he found himself in a very different position, for he was compelled to go a certain length with the noble Lord who had brought forward the measure now under discussion, though he differed from him in his practical conclusion; and on the other hand, though he agreed with the most rev. Prelate and with the right rev. Prelate who had just sat down on many points, he differed with them on one point of very great importance—indeed that on which they had laid the chiefest stress; and he, therefore, felt himself bound, in fairness to himself, and to the public, to request their Lordships' indulgence while he endeavoured briefly to explain the grounds on which he agreed and differed with those who had taken opposite sides of the question. This was the more necessary because he could not help feeling that a sort of personal appeal had been made to him, and to all those who held similar opinions with himself; and he was happy to know that he was not solitary in the opinion which he entertained on this subject—as if that opinion was not quite consistent with their public character and position in the Church. He felt it his duty emphatically to protest against such a view of their conduct, and to claim for them and for himself the privilege of differing in opinion from those who had made the laws by which the Church was governed with regard to the construction which they put upon a particular text of Scripture. This, he apprehended, was a latitude which ought not to be denied either to a layman or to a minister of the Church. He was not satisfied that the prohibition which at present existed was immediately and directly founded upon the law of God. Before explaining his reasons for so saying, he wished to make one general remark with regard to the observations of the right rev. Prelate, who had reminded their Lordships that the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament contained three codes of law—the ceremonial law, the civil, or, as perhaps it might more properly be termed, the municipal law, and the moral law—and asked to which of these codes they would refer the ordinances contained in the 18th chapter of Leviticus. He undoubtedly concurred with the right rev. Prelate in saying that the chapter belonged to the moral law: but it did not at all follow, that every particular ordinance on this subject should possess the character of an immutable moral law. Indeed, when they considered the nature of the subject treated of in this chapter, that it described a certain scale of relations, in which it was ne- cessary somewhere or other to draw a line of separation, it seemed evident that the drawing of such a line must be an ordinance which possessed something of a positive and conventional character. He went along with the most rev. Prelate, when he said that if an inference was to be drawn purely and entirely from that which is contained in the 18th chapter of Leviticus, down to the 16th verse inclusive, there could be no doubt but that, by the application of a parity of reasoning, we should be forced to the conclusion that the prohibition which at present exists is precisely as binding as that which is expressed in the 16th verse. No doubt, if the preceding part of the chapter had contained a distinct and express prohibition with regard to the point in question, that must have been allowed to overrule and determine the construction of the words which followed. But it must be remembered, that there was no such express prohibition. It was, after all, only a matter of inference and construction, and he could not admit that such an inference, such a construction as that, was to be placed on the same ground as an express and formal prohibition. He did not wish to speak dogmatically on the subject. He entertained the highest respect for the opinions of those who differed from him. He would only say that it did appear to him that such marriages as the Bill was intended to legalise were not prohibited, but tacitly, by implication, permitted by the words of Scripture in the 18th verse. He believed that he was acquainted with all the interpretations which had been put upon that passage, and with all the authorities which had been brought to bear upon it, at least with all those which had been brought forward during the present discussion; and his impression was, that they indicated a very strong desire to accommodate the construction of the Scriptures to a preconceived opinion, but that if such a preconceived opinion had not existed, such a construction would never have been adopted by learned and intelligent men. It was therefore impossible for him and those who agreed with him to take such high ground as that which had been taken during the present discussion in opposition to the Bill. He conceived this to be a subject on which their Lordships had a full and perfect right to legislate. This was a proposition which he would not merely admit, but would strongly assert and contend for, because while he was unable to agree with those who would give to this prohibition the force of a divine law, he must no less strongly protest against those who, because there might not exist such a divine law against these marriages, therefore conceived that the Legislature was bound to abolish every restriction which existed against them. He thought there was an interval and an intermediate space between the two views which were entertained on this question by different parties; the one considering the question as purely religious, the other as a question of mere expediency and policy. He conceived that there was an intermediate ground on which their legislation might be properly and advantageously based; from which the present restriction might be regarded on the one hand as a fence and a barrier, necessary to guard things which were purely religious, and which ought to be kept inviolably sacred, and on the other hand, might be recommended by grave considerations of policy and expediency. He begged to express his opinion that this law, which he was not less anxious to preserve than either of the right rev. Prelates, was a law of that mixed description, and he valued it the more on that account, and on that account the more he hoped and believed it would be permanent. He agreed in the remark which had been made—that only a very insignificant minority of the clergy entertained any doubt on the subject; and he thought that the opinion expressed by an immense majority of the clergy was a most important fact. Such a fact ought to have great weight on their Lordships' deliberations, not simply on account of the weight they might attach to the opinions of the clergy, either as a body or individually, but because he considered it to be impossible that the clergy, as a body, would be deeply impressed with such an opinion if it were not the feeling which prevailed throughout the great mass of the community. He believed, in spite of all that he had heard from those who protested against the present law, that it could not properly be said to be an ineffectual and inoperative law. These were merely comparative and relative terms after all. The simple question was, not whether the law was absolute, and to all intents and purposes effectual and operative, for no law was so, but whether it was so far operative and effectual as to find a response in the hearts and feelings of the community at large. His own firm conviction was, that it did find such a response; and not only so, but that the part of the community in which it found that echo was, on the whole, by far the best part, and that part whose opinion ought to have the greatest weight. He thought there were strong grounds before their Lordships—palpable, substantial grounds—for coming to that conclusion. The voice of Ireland was unanimous, or nearly so, on the subject. The voice of Scotland was, with inconsiderable exceptions, unanimous, and loud, and emphatic. And he wished to know whether, if their Lordships should think proper to select any portion of the vast community within the British islands to which to refer as a safe example of domestic morality, they could make a safer selection than from that which lay north of the Tweed? If they looked further south—if they looked across the Channel, a very different scene presented itself: they would find a state of morals and manners which he did not desire to see imitated in England; and he trusted they would not do anything tending to assimilate our institutions and our social system to that of those countries where this law did not prevail. On the contrary, it was because he was deeply impressed with the importance and necessity of preserving our institutions from the contagion of any such example, that he was most anxious no such change should take place in them. This law had been called inoperative. Now how could a law be called inoperative under which the framework of English society had grown up to its present state? It was not to be called inoperative, because there might be some thousands who, whether from ignorance, whether from misguided judgment, or from whatever cause, might have been led to transgress the law. He did not want to cast any imputation on the characters of those parties. He did not wish to deny their respectability. He sympathised with their feelings. There were cases of extreme suffering, but he could not allow them to be cases of hardship and injustice, because in every instance it appeared to him that the suffering had been brought upon the parties by their own deliberate act. Therefore, however he might privately commiserate them, he should be pushing his commiseration to an extravagant length if he consented to mould the laws and institutions of the country to their wishes. He would just advert to another topic connected with this question, and remind their Lordships that they must not consider the state of feeling represented in the petitions which had been laid on the table as altogether natural and spontaneous; on the contrary, he thought it was in a great measure factitious and artificial. He held in his hand a paper which he believed had been largely circulated, containing some reasons for assenting to the Bill—reasons, among which there was one which he was sure no Member of their Lordships' House would more heartily repudiate than the noble Earl who had charge of the Bill. He alluded to the formation of a society which had been organised for the express purpose of agitating in favour of this measure. This fact, their Lordships should observe, was not only prospective but retrospective. It threw light on the past as well as on the future. It showed not only what was intended to be done, but what had already been done. It showed by what process the public feeling had been formed, which was now represented as an argument for changing the law. Would their Lordships consent to let their legislation be influenced by such a Propaganda as that? For his own part, he declared that if he had been neutral and indifferent on other grounds, the very existence of such a society would have been with him a powerful motive for voting against the Bill. He did not wish to underrate the magnitude of the evil which the Bill was intended to remedy. But he could not shut his eyes to the fact that there was an evil, and a very great evil, on the other side. Now how were these two evils to be compared, so as to ascertain which was the greatest? He found one mode by which he could satisfy himself. One of the evils, that which the Bill was intended to remedy, was necessarily of a variable nature. It was something which admitted of increase or diminution, according to the state of society at one time or another. It might be to a great degree repressed, as it had hitherto been, by a course of consistent legislation, and the education of the public mind; and he could not be insensible to the fact, that the very agitation of this question had had the effect of multiplying these marriages. But the other class of evils to which the measure would lay us open was of an entirely different kind. It was something which must exist in every state of society—something constant, perpetual, and incurable. If there was any danger threatening domestic peace and purity from the permission of such intermarriages, certainly that was a danger which no legislation could ever prevent; it was an evil which would go on until it had effected a change in the national character and domestic relations of the people which would bring us near to the level of those Continental States, whose example, in this respect, he should wish most anxiously to shun. On these grounds he found his course to be perfectly clear. He was quite sure that the measure of the noble Earl, if carried, although it might afford gratification to a number of individuals who had been led into ill-advised courses, would bring distrust and jealousy and alarm and disturbance into thousands of other families, which had hitherto remained pure and happy. He would not presume to entreat or to plead with their Lordships, but would only say that for his own part he could never consent to share the responsibility of passing such a measure as that proposed by the noble Earl.

The BISHOP of NORWICH

My Lords, as I intend to give my vote against the Bill, I feel it to be the more due to the noble Earl who has introduced it, and to the other promoters of it, to state, that I do not share in one class of objections against it, entertained by most of my right rev. Brethren, and by many of your Lordships besides. I do not regard the measure as infringing on any direct scriptural command or precept. Granting that the Scriptures of the Old Testament, as well as of the New, are binding on us Christians wherever they reveal to us the Divine will concerning anything that is morally, intrinsically, and unchangeably right or wrong, I cannot bring myself to understand even the passages from the Old Testament, which have come under discussion to-night, as prohibiting the marriage of a man with his deceased wife's sister, and so constituting such marriages offences against the moral law of God. It would be very distasteful to me to make your Lordships' House a school for biblical criticism or theological disquisition, and I certainly do not purpose doing this. But there are some facts bearing on the question, to which I will venture to call the attention of your Lordships, because they are patent and palpable, and require no biblical or theological learning to appreciate them. The Scriptures, which are alleged to contain the prohibition, are, as we all know, part of a divine law which was originally given to the Israelitish peo- ple. Now it is remarkable that, from the first of that law being given, to the present day, so far as can be ascertained, the Israelites have never so understood these Scriptures. The learned Rabbi, Dr. Adler, in his evidence before the Commission, ignored such an interpretation. His words are— It is not only not considered as prohibited, but it is distinctly understood to be permitted; and on this point, neither the Divine law, nor the Rabbis, nor historical Judaism, leave room for the least doubt,' Traditional interpretation of Scripture is not ordinarily to be relied on; but this, I do contend, is just the case in which its weight and authority are irresistible. It is not the interpretation of a passage teaching some abstract truth, or of a prophecy the meaning of which was involved in the obscure future; but it is the interpretation of a Scripture which, from the nature of the subject, must have come at once into practical application, and must have had that practical application kept up, continued, and perpetuated, through all generations of a people proverbially scrupulous about their usages. I would not trust to a Jew for the meaning of a doctrinal Scripture, or for the interpretation of a prophetic Scripture; but the presumption in favour of his rightly interpreting a Scripture direction respecting marriage customs is such as would require some very strong internal evidence to overthrow it. Does any such exist? My Lords, you have been reminded by the noble Earl, most justly, that this same portion of Scripture, the Levitical law, contains also a command—no one disputes this—a command to the Israelites to contract marriages, under certain circumstances, in violation of the principle on which the prohibition, or supposed prohibition, is founded. Is it conceivable that the same divine enactment should have contained such an inconsistency? Recollect, this was not legislating respecting a ceremony, or any matter of positive precept, but on a subject of moral purity and moral principle. On such a subject, immutable in its nature, it is inconceivable that a divine law should even permit in one of its provisions that which it has prohibited in another, much less that it should enjoin it as a duty. And if to escape from imputing moral inconsistency to Scripture, it is contended, that the law on this subject was a portion of the civil not the moral law, in that case what have we to do with it? That which confessedly did form the subject of a divine commandment—restricted no doubt to special circumstances—the case of a woman marrying the brother of her deceased husband, was brought under the notice of One for whom we claim an authority above that of Scripture itself, and he did not condemn it, did not so much as say that it was permitted for the hardness of the people's hearts. I cannot, therefore, concur in the scriptural objections to this measure. In one point of view, Scripture may, no doubt, be said to be opposed to it. The principles of Scripture are opposed to whatever has a tendency to produce immorality, or to lower the tone of morality; and if these marriages, in the existing state of society amongst us, have such a tendency, as I myself am disposed to think they have, Scripture is so far against them; but there is no direct scriptural precept or command which forbids them.

Setting aside, then, this class of objections, I do see others, and very grave ones, which will, I trust, induce your Lordships to reject the Bill. We should recollect, that we are not now, for the first time, called on to legislate respecting such marriages. Were it so, it might be fairly questioned whether we should legislate at all. Not legislating, then, would imply, that the Legislature did not consider legal interference suitable to the case, and declined expressing any judgment on it. But, after so many years of stringent legislation, after habituating the nation at large to look on these marriages with reprobation and abhorrence, to rescind the law—not merely to modify but to reverse previous legislation—this would have the effect of giving a positive and august sanction to these marriages. And mark the operation of a measure so understood. I am desirous of speaking with great respect (for I really entertain it) of the religious and moral character of those who are urging on this measure; but I am still bound to say, that it is a measure which would offend and shock the sacred feelings of nearly the whole of what are called the religious world. My Lords, you should pause before you venture to do this; and especially, when you reflect, that previous legislation has tended, and was designed to create, and foster, and confirm the feelings which are now arrayed against a reversal of the law. And on what ground would you be doing this? Because certain individuals complain that the existing statute presses on them severely and injuriously. For every one to whom this measure could bring relief, a thousand would be injured by the shock which it would give to their most sacred notions and impressions.

But there is one point of view in which the objectionable character of the Bill presents itself to my mind more strongly and cogently yet. I do feel that we here are hardly competent judges of the question. It is essentially a woman's question. If we ask what portion of the community will be most deeply affected by our decision this night, and are most anxiously and tremblingly awaiting that decision, it is the women of England. And ninety-nine out of every hundred of them are not only opposed to the Bill, but regard the possibility of its success with disgust and dismay. They tell us—and on such a subject we are bound to listen to them—that if the existing law is repealed, according to the tone of opinion and feeling which prevails amongst them, and exercises a paramount influence over them, all that free, familiar brotherly and sisterly intercourse between the husband and the wife's sister—all the happiness which results from it—is at an end. They tell us, that when death removes the married sister, the unmarried sister cannot, as now, make the bereaved home hers, and take charge of the motherless children. They implore you not to take a step which will disturb some of the happiest relations of domestic life, to an extent which you may not be able to comprehend. Some of your Lordships may ridicule this scrupulous sensitiveness—may call it fastidious, mawkish; but, think of it as we may, we are bound to deal with it as an important fact. And whatever may be our estimate of feelings such as these, we should not forget that they form part of that fine tissue of moral sensibilities which make the English female character what it is, and render the homes of England the abodes of a moral purity, and a domestic sanctity, which are amongst the choicest blessings for which we ought to be thankful to God. I, my Lords, will be no party to a measure which is to distress and outrage feelings which exercise so blessed an influence on the happiness and well-being of English society.

At the same time, I am ready to admit that the existing law does press unfairly on some portions of the community. It does seem hard, and savours of religious intolerance, that we should put an interpretation on the marriage law of the Jews contrary to theirs, and compel them to abide by it. If the noble Earl bad based his measure on the broad principle of religious toleration—if he had claimed exemption for the Jews, and for any other body of religionists besides them who may complain of the law as opposed to their religious tenets, I should not have been indisposed to support the Bill. But I cannot concur in a measure which is calculated to relieve a very few comparatively at the cost of the great mass of the community.

VISCOUNT GAGE

My Lords, it is never without the greatest reluctance that I venture to intrude myself upon your Lordships' notice, but I do so now with even more than ordinary reluctance, as I feel that I am, as it were, going out of my way to oppose many who have peculiar claims upon my respect, inasmuch as I must give them credit for imagining, however erroneously, that they are compelled by conscience and religion to resist the passing of this measure. And God forbid that I should appear as its advocate, could I entertain the slightest shadow of a doubt as to the utter fallacy of their notions upon this subject, whether in its spiritual or its temporal bearings!

My Lords, I take my stand at once upon one of the simplest axioms of rational freedom when I say that any law which restrains a man in the exercise of an important natural right, by the deprivation of which his prosperity or happiness may be seriously affected, stands ipso facto as a tyrannical law, from which imputation it can only be relieved by proof shown to, and admitted by, the sustaining Legislature, either that the restriction complained of is a Divine command, or that it is necessary, or that is so highly and so indisputably expedient as to justify the injustice done to individuals, by a greater amount of good to a greater number of individuals or to society in general.

My Lords, here is a law which is thus arraigned. The first plea in its favour is Divine command. Under this pretence it was imposed; under this idea it has been acquiesced in; and under this pretence it is even now still sought by some to be maintained. My Lords, among other reasons for thinking that the authority of Scripture is not applicable to the present case; I must observe that the Septuagint and the Vulgate do not afford even the little obscurity contained in the term "uncover nakedness." Revelare turpitudinem, is the phrase used in the latter, turpitu- dinem ejus non revelabis. And the Greek is similar. Your Lordships can judge, therefore, how much foundation there is for the supposition, especially as the lawgiver is not very delicate in expressing his meaning upon several subjects, which will be seen by reference to the 20th, 22nd, and 23rd verses of the 18th chapter of Leviticus. Should it be attempted to draw any support from the hidden source of Hebrew, I meet it once by the evidence of the Chief Rabbi, who tells your Lordships that these marriages, far from being forbidden by the Jewish Church, are rather considered as desirable. And it would be hard, indeed, if the Jews did not know their own law in its positive enactments, even in their original Hebrew interpretation. For, however little their may now know of their ancient language, tradition would at least have instructed them in the fact of the existence of such prohibitions; and the Talmud is anything but a relaxation of the ancient law.

But then it is said that for 1500 years the Church has condemned these marriages, and canons have existed against them. Now I say, that this may be very well for those who maintain the absolute infallibility of a dominant Church at all times, and in all cases; but it is scarcely an argument for your Lordships, who for the most part only allow to the purest, most honest, and most learned Church that has ever yet existed, what alone that Church professes to claim, such authority as it can clearly prove from Scripture. If, therefore, the founders of our Church have incautiously adopted a canon prohibiting that which of its own mere authority it had no right to prohibit, and which Scripture does not warrant it in prohibiting, now that the evil has become apparent, it is surely time for that Church to rescind such canon, and to cease opposition to the repeal of any secular law founded upon it. Why, my Lords, what is the respect that the enacting Church has itself paid to its own canon upon marriage? For a certain fee it granted dispensation in all such cases, and even in cases of blood-relationship, which it had as authoritatively and much more wisely forbidden. The pretended law of God was to be compounded for a fee to His Church—not a fine as penance for having broken, but a fee for permission to break the law. And yet our reformed Church, without any dispensing power, has retained the most useless, and because most useless, the most unjust, of those restrictions. Why, my Lords, the Roman Catholics are themselves setting the example of liberality in this case. They do not, like certain of their most vehement opponents, who have almost equal powers of annoyance, ask for a law to visit the sins of the parents upon the children, but they trust to the power of their own discipline to restrain the parents.

My Lords, an impression, which appears to me to be very erroneous, seems to exist in men's minds upon theological and Church subjects, namely, that we are now, and have been from the beginning, in a state of progressive deterioration as regards religious knowledge, and that opinions become more and more valuable as they recede backwards. Now, it stands to reason that the fact must be, cæteris paribus, the reverse. The Apostles, indeed, had supernatural powers conferred upon them, which enabled them with certainty to decide upon any matter brought before them; but these not having been continued to their successors, the character of each successive age influenced churchmen as well as others; and it soon came to be, that religious truth was decided by physical force; the strongest was the orthodox Church, and all others heretics. Persecution for opinion soon followed in natural course, and has continued, though under gradual mitigations, to the present day, when, however the disposition may linger in obscure quarters, the Christian world may at least be said to know better. The true spirit of Christianity, or I should perhaps say a much truer spirit, is at least recognised. Why, then, are those who recognise it to bow to those who could not—the seeing to the blind? Why are we to remain saddled by the consequences of the superstitions of those who thought that terror could work real conversion—that sin could be bought off with money—and that useless, uncalled-for, unwarranted asceticism was a charm to win heaven? Your Lordships will remember that the sexual has ever been a favourite form of asceticism amongst devotees even long anterior to Christianity—that it was looked upon as a sort of supernatural virtue indicating special holiness—and you will remember how these notions, for which Scripture gives no warrant, were parodied in the Christianity of the middle ages, when public and private vows of celibacy and chastity were encouraged by the Church, first enjoined, then enforced, upon the clergy, and marriage itself treated rather as if it were a compromise with evil—rather as an evil to be tolerated by necessity, than a command of the God of nature, to be encouraged. And, my Lords, that this cloud hung partially upon the minds of religionists, even at the Reformation, you may plainly discern in the marriage ceremony of our own vaunted Liturgy. This so widely prevalent superstition may well account for the introduction of such canons into the early Church, and even for their intrusion into our own, but forms no reason whatever for keeping them, now that they are become inconvenient, and that the falsity of their origin is exposed.

My Lords, I am not one of those who would argue, in a case of this kind which has reference to general human nature, that the book of Leviticus is nothing to us, as I might, and should, in a matter of mere form or ceremony; were it, for instance, some Jewish question of second marriage, or marriage with a widow of a dignitary of the Church. But the book of Leviticus and the whole Scripture is silent upon the subject; and the representatives of those to whom Leviticus was specially addressed know of no such prohibitions as are contained in our canon; their traditions tell of none having ever existed. I think, then, that we may consider this objection as disposed of.

We now come, my Lords, to the theory of restrictions upon marriage. No one, however superficially acquainted with the natural history of the generation of animals, can be at a loss to perceive, and at once approve, the reasons of the prohibitions, whatever their origin, against the intermarriage of near blood relations. Yet, in this our canon is an enormous relaxation—a relaxation greater even than any naturalist could abstractedly approve. For, take a strong case—let two brothers, as often happens, marry two sisters, the children of these marriages may intermarry without offence to the Church, or the law, in spite of the double kin of blood. And yet, while it is sought rigidly to maintain the restriction upon the cases before us, where no blood relationship at all is concerned, should any zealous restrictionest propose to re-enact the ancient canon, even only so far as such double first cousinship, how would such a proposition be received in this day? Is there a bishop on the bench who would dare to support it? Yet here is blood, here is reason. But affinity is a very different thing, and any restric- tions regarding it must stand at least upon very different grounds.

My Lords, I do not neither do I supposed that any one endowed with the commonest sense of propriety could, object to certain restrictions in the class of affinity. Unquestionably, in certain cases, restriction is desirable. But, then, these are cases of such monstrous misalliance as must, of necessity, shock the whole community, and which, probably, neither madness nor money would cause to be attempted once in a century. But the cases before your Lordships are not of this nature; they are not misalliances at all. For instance, let two families, B. and C, stand towards each other in unquestioned marriageable position. A. of family B., wishing to ally himself with family C, may do so with exactly equal propriety, through any one of the daughters D., E., F. of that family; one is as unobjectionable as another. Then, how can his mating choice of D. render E. or F. objectionable? "Oh, they are become his sisters!" you may say. You may say so, certainly; but how are they become his sisters more than before? He has made no vows to them—they have made no vows to him. They have stood towards each other in no new position beyond that of the greater intimacy or estrangement which the circumstances of the marriage may have induced. The sisterhood is nothing but a mere legal fiction; and yet for such mere legal fiction, you deprive A. of a most important natural right—one, perhaps, most seriously affecting his happiness and the well-being of his children, the right, namely, of supplying, should it so seem good to him, the premature loss of his wife by one whose real character he has probably had unusual means of ascertaining, and whose natural attractions may be presumed to be far more congenial to him than those of any other woman, from innate similarity to his late wife. This is the case often to a degree, when acting Upon a mind shaken by morbid grief, Which renders the law cruel indeed to the widower, and deprives the children of the most desirable of stepmothers.

And now, my Lords, what pretence has this law to remain on your Statute-books? How can its advocates justify the depriving of any man of so dear, so sacred a right, one so intimately affecting his happiness, as the choice of a wife? Where is the necessity, where even the expediency, that can justify it? The evidence of your own Commission shows evils without number attendant upon this law. What is the good of it? "Oh," say some of its advocates, "consider what injury you will be inflicting upon widowers and their children, by depriving them of the society and care of the sister and aunt, who, now that She can never he legally married to her sister's widower, does not scruple to live with him, and be as a mother to his children; whereas, you know, could they marry, this could never be." I know no such thing, but rather the contrary, for I know a case where the sister is thus living unmarried, and, without imputation of immorality, is looked down upon for thus living unmarried. My Lords, the merit of this argument (for merit I must not deny to it) consists in the very extraordinary boldness of the assumption, and the desperate ingenuity of its tu quoque upon us. According to them, then, it seems that all is perfectly well, and every proper person contented as it is; whereas, by relaxing the restrictions, we should be depriving widowers and orphans of a resource which they now possess—a boon bestowed merely by the restrictive law. My Lords, a very few moments' consideration must, I should think, be sufficient to send this notion to limbo, in search of its sister-in-law, the Levitical prohibition.

My Lords, there never was a time when such marriages did not occasionally take place, or when what is technically termed "doing worse," did not also occasionally take place. So much for this maudlin, supposititious delicacy, with which the advocates of the present restriction have been attempting to get up a cry among the ladies. As to the very law, too, it, in its present harshness, is not so very old. Have sisters-in-law only lived with, and rendered themselves useful to, their brothers-in-law and their children, since the period when the marriages in question were rendered by Act of Parliament ab initio null and void? Did they never do their duty when such marriages were only voidable? when they might marry, though the marriage might not in all results be quite safe from the cupidity of relatives? I speak, now, of the upper classes. But in middle and lower life, no such impossibility of marrying a deceased wife's sister, or niece, has ever been generally recognised or thought of; and yet amongst them, more than in the upper ranks of life, do sisters in-law act the good part assigned to them.

My Lords, as to presuming to assert that in no case, in no individual instance, any such inconvenience as that alluded to, could take place; of course, that would he absurd, even if it depended upon individual whim and caprice, unexcited by party cry. But I think I might venture to predict, that such instances will he very rare, after the excitement of the struggle has a little subsided. For women have been most cunningly excited upon the subject through their constitutional jealousy; and herein, I think, the agitators may find that they have much to answer for, whether the Bill pass or not, as they have sown seeds of evil which they cannot so easily eradicate. Women have been talked to at one time as if this Bill were to enable a man to marry his wife's sister during her life; at another, as if it were to compel him to do so after her death, and as if that were to be specially hastened for the purpose: in all cases carefully leaving out of view the probability or possibility of any other second marriage, than with the sister. Now, if you will inquire into the matter, I think you will find that the objection of the ladies is, in reality, to the idea of second marriage at all; naturally enough, they cannot bear the idea of being superseded. In other instances, their sensibility has been alarmed by the authoritative "of course no woman could think of remaining in the house of a widower, if it were possible he could marry her;" the cunning dictator calculating well that the simple question, "Why not?" which would break his talisamn is just what his fair pupil would least think of asking, or would fancy she dared not ask, if it should occur to her. And it is in this sort of case, and in the upper or richer ranks of life, where the inconvenience would he least felt, and the secession more easily supplied, would nine out of ten of such instances (if indeed so many ever did occur) happen. Your Lordships know that in your own sphere it would not, even under the present law, be reckoned quite comme il faut for a young sister-in-law to live alone with, or with only very young children, with a young brother-in-law, under this pretence of sisterhood, merely because they could not legally marry; yet this is held out to you as a good that must be barred by the repeal of the law. In the ranks below you, indeed, necessity may sometimes compel this, and want of refinement may tolerate an undue familiarity, under pretence of sisterhood, which you would not tolerate. But over such things you have no control; and if this measure should have the effect of restrain- ing such undue familiarity, no harm will be done. It neither compels the proposal of the man, nor the acceptance of the woman. She is still the deceased wife's sister, and aunt to her children. And this is the obvious answer to any question regarding her position; it is all she ever needed—all, probably, that either she or the widower thought of, or might have thought of, had it not been put into their heads by officious zealots.

And yet, my Lords, this objection is not so utterly void of foundation as was the former, for there will be an inconvenience, a factitious one, and I will tell your Lordships what it is. What would a woman fear? Not a proposal which she might decline if she pleased, and which if she had reason to expect, and did not intend to accept, she would not even now, if a woman of any delicacy, expose herself to. But what a woman would fear is the imputation d'autrai, that such was the motive of her charity to the widower and orphans. The law is a certain degree of defence to her in this, which, being removed, she must defend herself as she can. But this is only an example of all the rest of the objections, which are a magnifying and giving preference to the weaknesses and less amiable qualities of the sex, over those holy and magnanimous virtues which, God be praised, preponderate so greatly, not only among our own favoured and educated countrywomen, but which are innate in the very soul of that most unselfish, most noble, and chivalrous refiner of our nature—woman! Should not the fact, were it even a solitary instance, of one dying mother having implored the father of her children to supply her place with her sister, outweigh a thousand-fold all the gratuitous grovelling suppositions of misery to be caused by unfounded and visionary jealousy, of which we have heard so much from those who would arrogate to themselves the protectorship of woman, while from want of sufficient nobility of mind to grasp her real nature, they are only the libellers of the sex?

But really, my Lords, this is, after all, mere trifling. Let the inconvenience threatened be tenfold what it is possible for it to be, look at the evidence before you, and you will find it overborne, out and out, on the side of repeal. For you must not forget that where this question concerns your class of life to the value of a grain, it concerns those below you a pound. A man who can command the services of others may contrive to live without wife or female relative, but a poor man cannot, especially if he has children to look after; and you know, or ought to know very well, that in cases where juxtaposition between people of opposite sexes is thus effected, it is much safer that they should be able to marry, if they wish it, than not. Look, I say, at the evidence, and then tell me whether this law has proved that safeguard to morality and virtue which its supporters would represent it to have been. Instead of a safeguard it has proved a betrayer.

My Lords, here is a grievance felt by many individuals, and not only by individuals but by societies, and acknowledged by many of those who from their position (for I speak of clergymen) would naturally of all others uphold the law as it stands. But they cannot resist facts and the evidence of their own senses, and they urge upon you the change for the benefit of their cures. We have also petitions extensively signed by firms of solicitors and also by medical men; and when it is considered how much these two classes are connected with the interior of families, it can scarcely fail to strike your Lordships as a circumstance of some importance, that they should have combined to come forward and testify to you how deeply the grievance of this law is felt. I do therefore implore the heads of the Church to consider these things, and not wantonly, and for a mere fiction, to perpetuate so great an evil. They must see that they cannot, even were it ever so desirable, render the law effectual; for men will not, in spite of all they can say or do, recognise as a truth the fiction which calls their wives' sisters their own; they feel that is not so, and will resist a law which they hold to be uselessly tyrannical. My Lords, how is such a law to be enforced? Alas, the consequences fall not upon those who brave it, but upon their innocent offspring; and when these shall meet the punishment of the imputed sin of their parents, will they recognise its justice, will they humbly kiss the rod, and range themselves as supporters of a Church which has doomed them to ignominy and confiscation? Will they not inquire into the reasons and causes of their doom? And will what they may discover, and their reverence for an Establishment which is even now pressed by unscrupulous assailants, ready and eager to take up any cause, to hit any blot, to whom a grievance is a prize? Can it then be for the good of the authority of the Church itself to insist upon upholding a law which it cannot hope to defend as divine, which it cannot directly enforce, but which in its operation entails the misery of privation upon those who are restrained by it, and the misery of illegitimacy and deprivation upon the children of those who infringe it, and who will therefore be born each child a natural enemy of the Church of England, as a victim of its adhesiveness to injustice—an injustice rendered even the more galling by the spectacle of other nations with institutions and churches far less liberal, where the law that dooms them here has been relaxed, not only without detriment, or bringing on the evils so harshly predicted by the opponents of this measure of relief, but with the happiest results?

LORD CAMPBELL

said, that having the honour to hold so high an office in the magistracy, he thought it his duty to express his opinion upon this Bill, which sought so importantly, and he thought 80 fatally, to change the law of England. The arguments on both sides—so much had been said and written upon the subject—were familiar to their Lordships; and those against the Bill had been reiterated by the right rev. Prelates who had preceded him in a manner which must make a deep impression upon their Lordships, and upon the mind of the nation. He had listened with delight to the opinions which he had heard that night, and he trusted that the agitation which the noble Viscount who last addressed the House complained of was drawing to a close. He was desirous of expressing his approbation of the manner in which the measure had been introduced by the noble Earl who had shown great research, great learning and great acuteness. No doubt he was actuated by the purest and most honourable motives, as were others entertaining the same sentiments in either House of Parliament. So were many of the petitioners in favour of this measure. But he should not be doing his duty unless he reminded their Lordships of the manner in which this agitation was begun and carried on. They had had agitations upon the Reform Bill, upon the repeal of the corn laws, and upon other great political measures; but he believed this was the first time that societies had been instituted for the purpose of changing a law resembling that of marriage, and where, purely for the purpose of personal interest, a great effort had been made to influence public opinion. He could not help saying, from the evi- dence that had been laid before him, that this agitation was begun by those who had violated the law, and that it had been earned on by them in conjunction with those who had entered into engagements which the law forbade. Let us see the manner in which it was conducted. They began by retaining counsel, by retaining solicitors, by sending lecturers over the country; by writing pamphlets, and by holding public meetings, at which their advocates spoke from the platform. And what was the topic with which they begun? That as the law then stood, these marriages of a man with the sister of his deceased wife were perfectly legal. And it was by having taught to the people of this country that these marriages were lawful that they had occasioned in many instances the law to be broken, and then they brought forward those breaches of the law as arguments in favour of now altering the law of marriage. Although, as had been said, from the time when, in the second century, Christianity was first planted in this country to the present, such marriages had been prohibited, yet it was asserted positively that they were perfectly lawful. Now this subject had been solemnly argued in the Court of Queen's Bench, before his distinguished predecessor, Lord Denman. The question arose whether such a marriage was lawful or was void; and by the unanimous judgment of the whole Court of Queen's Bench, they were declared to be void and incestuous. Some allusion had been made to an opinion which was expressed by a learned Judge, when he was at the bar, for whom he (Lord Campbell) entertained a profound respect as well as affection. Now, his opinion as a Judge was not in the slightest degree to be impaired, because, in the haste of his profession, without having the case argued before him, or probably without having had time to consider the question, he at the bar gave a contrary opinion. On the contrary, the fact only added to the weight which attached to his opinion as a Judge, which he gave after having heard the question solemnly argued before him by counsel on both sides. It was then proposed to appeal to that House; but so convincing were the reasons given by the Judges, that such a step was never ventured upon, and it had been from that moment allowed that the law forbade such marriages, and that therefore they could not be lawfully solemnised. Now, what was the next proceeding? They said, then, that the law prohibiting these marriages had been introduced by Lord Lyndhurst's Act; that Lord Lyndhurst's Act, which introduced the illegality of these marriages, ought to be repealed; and there had been repeated petitions presented to their Lordships asking them to repeal Lord Lyndhurst's Act, which rendered these marriages unlawful. The agitators went about the country asserting in the most positive terms, that until Lord Lyndhurst's Bill passed, these marriages were sanctioned by the law of England. Now, the fact was, that Lord Lyndhurst's Act had made no alteration in the law; it had only altered the mode of procedure by which these unlawful marriages were to be set aside. There had been previously a great defect in the law of England on this point. Marriages, however censurable on the ground of incest, were not void. Even if a man married his own sister or his mother, he (Lord Campbell) was ashamed to say, that that was not a void marriage; it stood good until it had been set aside by the decrees of a competent Judge. Lord Lyndhurst's Act properly provided that those marriages which heretofore had only been voidable should be void, as they had been before the Reformation, and as they were in Scotland at this time. Lord Lyndhurst introduced no new law, but only improved the mode of procedure, the manner in which the law was to be in future enforced. He (Lord Campbell) thought their ancestor* had acted with great wisdom when they separated from the Church of Rome. As had been stated by the right rev. Prelate who sat near him, there was nothing in which the Church of Rome more annoyed the people of this country than in its usurpation of the power of disturbing the laws of marriage. With respect to the unlawfulness of marriage, they multiplied the prohibited degrees to such an extent, that among the upper ranks of society few matches could be made without a dispensation from Rome; and they thus added to the power and the wealth of their Church. At the Reformation, however, the people of this country drew a distinct line of demarcation, indicating clearly the prohibited degrees, and all marriages within that line were regarded as unlawful, and all beyond it as lawful. Notwithstanding some quotations cited from law books by the noble Earl (Earl St. Germans) the rule then settled had been considered the law of England from the time of Henry VIII. to the present day. There was an attempt made in the reign of Charles II. to introduce a new law to allow the marriage of a man with his wife's sister, but it failed; and Lord Chief Justice Vaughan, and all the Judges at that time, concurred in the opinion that, according to the just construction of the 32nd of Henry VIII., such a marriage was forbidden. The law continued so until Lord Lyndhurst's Act; and he trusted their Lordships would not alter it. If their Lordships said so by a large majority, the agitation would soon die away. Upon the scriptural question it would not become him to give any decided opinion, although he must say, that according to the rules of construction applied to human laws, he was inclined to agree with the most rev. Prelate who had spoken, and that of the right rev. Prelate who followed. But if Scripture were silent on the subject, he had no difficulty whatever in saying that the marriage of a man with the sister pf his deceased wife ought to be forbidden by the law of the land. The noble Viscount who last addressed their Lordships seemed to him (Lord Campbell) to treat the subject as if it were merely one of a physical nature—

LORD GAGE

explained that he had said he saw reasons for prohibition between very near blood relations.

LORD CAMPBELL

continued: In common society, at all events, when one conversed with those who approved this measure, one could not fail to be struck by hearing the argument used that there was nothing unnatural in it. But this was not a mere physical question: it was a moral question; it was a social question; they were to consider what was to promote the purity, ease, and comfort of domestic life. Did the noble Viscount say he would merely look to consanguinity?

LORD GAGE

Very nearly.

LORD CAMPBELL

Would the noble Viscount contend that a stepfather might marry his stepdaughter, or that a stepson might marry his stepmother? Would that lead to the comfort and to the purity of domestic life?

LORD GAGE

No! certainly not.

LORD CAMPBELL

Then the noble Viscount would regard affinity. Where was the line to be drawn, if not by taking consanguinity and affinity on the same footing? The argument of the right rev. Prelate (the Bishop of Exeter) was unanswerable, that man and wife were one flesh, and that by the declaration of the Redeemer the relations of the one were to be considered as relations of the other. If they adopted that line, there would be no difficulty in enforcing it, and the noble Viscount had not suggested any other as possible. They would perceive at once that if there was no distinction between the sister of the wife and any stranger, and adulterous intercourse took place between the husband and the sister during the life of the wife, it would be simply adultery. On what ground would they allow a remedy to the wife for the adultery of the husband in such a case? A remedy was now to be obtained by the wife, for this reason, and for this reason alone, that adultery with a wife's sister was incestuous—that the purposes of marriage were defeated, and on that ground that the marriage ought to be annulled. Upon a case of this description Lord Thurlow had said— The wife cannot forgive the adultery and return to her husband without being herself guilty of incest. Had this criminal intercourse taken place before marriage, the ecclesiastical court would have set aside the marriage as incestuous and void. The wife could never live with her husband; and, if innocent, was she to be condemned for his crime to spend the rest of her days in the unheard-of situation of being neither virgin, wife, nor mother. He (Lord Campbell) thought it hardly necessary to touch on the argument which was used with respect to the benefit to be derived by the children of the deceased wife from the fact of the sister becoming their stepmother. It had been already shown that, in a great majority of instances, the children must be sufferers, because in a great majority of instances they would be deprived of the tender care of an aunt, which they now enjoyed. Legalise marriage between the widower and the deceased wife's sister, and the children must be deprived of the care and attention of that near relation, because, from this time forth it would be utterly impossible for the sister of the deceased wife to remain under the same roof with the widower. With regard to the argument which had been used by the noble Viscount, that they would not introduce a law to forbid all marriages that were inexpedient, he (Lord Campbell) allowed that such a law would be absurd—it would be absurd to bring in a Bill to prevent marriage between a man of 75 and a girl of 16; but was it not quite clear that there was a great difference between marriages which were expedient, and marriages which were inces- tuous? Could they have the benefit of purity of domestic life unless that connexion was looked upon with abhorrence, as contrary to the law of God and the law of man? It was only by such a feeling being instilled into the mind, until it became a sort of instinct in all who came within its operation, that they could have the full benefit of that purity, peace, and happiness of domestic life which they now enjoyed. With regard to the violation of the law, he (Lord Campbell) believed there had been monstrous exaggeration as to the actual number of cases, but there was another source of that violation which also required notice. He observed that the returns were made from Lancashire and Staffordshire, where there were a considerable number of Roman Catholics. When the then Bishop of Melipotamus (now rejoicing in a more sounding title) was examined before the Committee, as to what were the practices of the Church of Rome, he said they were certainly much less strict than in the Anglican Church; and he stated in the most express manner, that since the Act of 1835 had passed, making these marriages void, although among Roman Catholics they could not be celebrated without dispensation, he had continued to grant dispensations for them, and after a dispensation was granted, no Roman Catholic priest could refuse to celebrate the marriage. The law of the land was here distinctly set aside, and those marriages encouraged in direct violation of it. With regard to these marriages, which he (Lord Campbell) called incestuous, he had been assured in the most positive manner, by those who had the best means of information, that they were not more numerous than instances of bigamy, an offence which he knew from experience, both as, counsel and Judge, was exceedingly common in every county in England. Not an assize was held scarcely without there being a trial for bigamy. It might, with as much reason, be contended that this was a ground for making polygamy legal—that all that had been done to bind one man to one woman was ineffectual, contrary to the propensities of mankind, and, therefore, that polygamy should be legalised. If the ground of consanguinity was to be the only ground of prohibition, they might go on from permitting marriage between a man and his deceased wife's sister, to an extent fearful to contemplate. In some foreign lands such marriages were permitted; but he hoped that though we might avail ourselves of the discoveries of science in other countries, we might, with regard to morality and domestic life, teach all the nations of the world. In no other country was the conjugal tie held with such sacredness as in England. In other countries they allowed marriages between an uncle and a niece; but he hoped that in England they might still (though how long it would be so he knew not) look upon such marriages with abhorrence. In all those countries—Germany for instance—marriage was set aside on the most frivolous pretences. In America, too, they allowed a dissolution of marriage in cases in which in this country we would not for a moment think of doing so. We acted upon the sacred injunction that it was for adultery alone marriages were to be dissolved; by a departure from the sacred precept the sanctity of the marriage tie had been impaired, and he hoped they would never seek in Berlin or New Orleans for examples to follow in domestic life. The preamble of the Bill most disingenuously recited, that it had been lately decided that these marriages were unlawful; but the fact was, that when it was so decided Lord Den-man expressed his opinion that, by the 32nd Henry VIII., such marriages were prohibited, and were unlawful. Scotland was excluded from the operation of this Act. And why? Because it was utterly impossible to include Scotland. The people of that country, with hardly a single exception, looked upon such unions, to use the language of the right rev. Prelate, with abhorrence; and they would have just ground to complain, because such marriages were declared by the Confession of Faith contrary to God's law; and the Confession of Faith had been made part of the law of Scotland by an Act of Parliament which was still in force. But was not the omission of Scotland fatal to the Bill? In Scotland these marriages would be void; in England they would be valid. They might just as well make one law for Middlesex, and another for Surrey; and the confession of the noble Earl that he could not extend that measure to the whole island, was reason enough for its rejection. The Bill proposed to enact that henceforth a marriage between a man and the niece of his wife should be lawful. What were the arguments in favour of the niece being allowed to become the wife of her uncle by marriage? Was she to take care of the children? Would the dying wife recommend her husband to marry her niece? Did nieces, too, make the best stepmothers? These were the most plausible arguments that had been brought forward in favour of this Bill, but none of them applied to the niece. The niece here became the wife of the uncle; but why not extend the same principle, and say that the wife might marry her brother-in-law? It was one of the melancholy facts that, if passed, this would not be a final Bill. Jealousy and alarm would be introduced into every family in England. The noble Viscount had truly stated that the female sex were already very much alarmed. If they took the whole of the female population, he believed 99 out of every 100 would petition their Lordships that the Bill should never be allowed to pass; and he attributed this feeling not to any agitation which had been got up, but to the natural delicacy of the female sex, and their intuitive perception of what was just, right, and becoming. These marriages had been contracted in open violation of the law, and the parties were living in a state of concubinage, and he particularly objected to the clause legalising incestuous marriages which are now void; their children were illegitimate. Although the Legislature had interfered to sanction what had been done in ignorance, never till now had it been proposed to render valid marriages contracted in open violation of the law. He would only glance at what had taken place with regard to Royal marriages. If ever there was a case which deserved commiseration, and in which they might be excused for feeling an inclination to render valid one of these marriages, it was that case which they had had to decide at the bar of their Lordships' House, where the parties were both of them innocent of contracting a marriage which was not recognised by law—where a lady of illustrious descent and immaculate virtue was led to the altar by a Prince of the blood, and many opinions prevailed that it was a valid marriage by law. But, notwithstanding the powerful arguments urged, their Lordships unanimously came to the determination that the marriage was void. If, then, they refused to make valid a marriage contracted by persons who believed they were acting in conformity with the law, how could they be asked to legalise the marriages of persons who had acted in direct opposition to the law? With regard to the parties who had contracted these marriages, he would state to their Lordships the words of his distinguished predecessor, Lord Denman:— I am aware that painful instances may be cited, where ignorant persons, of the inferior classes of society, have contracted marriages of this kind, and now find that they are invalid. But as to persons in a higher rank of life, if there are any who have contracted marriages since the passing of the late Act [that was, Lord Lyndhurst's Act], they have defied the law, and broken its declared restraints. And he (Lord Campbell) must refer to an assertion made, not by the noble Earl who had brought the measure forward, but in various interested publications, that this is a measure of relief merely for the poor. That argument was perfectly fallacious. According to the statistics of the promoters of the Bill, these unlawful marriages were not contracted in the greatest number by the poor: they were contracted by persons chiefly in the middling and upper ranks, well-educated, fully aware of what they were doing, and of the consequences of their own acts. Therefore it was not for the sake of the poor, but for the sake of those who had consciously and deliberately violated the law that the measure was to be passed. He (Lord Campbell) could now only express a hope that it would be rejected by a large majority. As to permitting the Bill to be read a second time with the view to further discussion, the idea was preposterous. It rested on principle—it was not a matter of detail—and no noble Lord ought to vote for its being read a second time who was not prepared at once to see it pass into law. He trusted it would be rejected by such a majority as would take away all hope of future success, and that no further attempt would be made to disturb those principles which rest on divine precepts, and on which the purity and happiness of domestic life essentially depend.

The BISHOP of LONDON

would not have thought of intruding upon their Lordships' notice at that late hour of the evening, if he had not been aware that an opinion had gone forth, among those whom he should be sorry to have deceived in such a matter, that his opinions with reference to this subject, had undergone some change in the last ten years. On Lord Wharncliffe presenting a number of petitions some ten years since, he (the Bishop of London) took occasion to deliver at length his opinions, deprecating as strongly as he could any change in the marriage law of the country. He admitted that there had been some alteration in his opinion on that subject—a certain change had come over his opinions, but not in the direction supposed by the persons to whom he had re- ferred. He then expressed considerable doubt whether the prohibition of these marriages could be fully sustained on the ground that they were expressly prohibited by the law of God. On this most important and most vital question he would not say that his mind was now entirely made up; but having carefully reviewed the whole subject, and read much that had been said on both sides of the question, he was much more inclined to think than he had been at any former period, that these marriages were prohibited by the law of God. This weighed with him to a great extent, that by an analogy and parity of reasoning the same arguments must apply to one woman and two brothers, as to one man and two sisters. Unless they admitted that analogy, he was not aware that they were able to point to any distinct scriptural enactment which said that a man should not marry his own daughter. Upon that principle, and believing that a correct interpretation had been put upon the 18th verse of the chapter which had been alluded to, he was inclined to attribute much more weight to the proposition of its being prohibited by the law of God than he was ten years ago. He could not refrain from alluding in a few words to what had been advanced to-night. With respect to the Jews, his right rev. Friend behind him had stated, that one reason why he thought that there was no prohibition was, that the Jews themselves did not put that interpretation on the passage, and that they did not to this day act upon any such interpretation. He would beg to remind his right rev. Friend, if it were necessary to remind one of his learning and acuteness, first, that we had no means of ascertaining exactly what view the earlier Jews took of that prohibition; but this we did know, that the Jews of our Saviour's time had made the word of God of none effect by their traditions; and it was not less a fact, that, for many centuries past the religion of the Jews—he said it with all respect for that body, in which were many excellent men—their religion had been that of the Talmud, and not that of the Bible. His right rev. Friend thought their Lordships would willingly support the present measure, because the prohibition of the statutes bore especially, hard upon the Jews, and this measure would relieve that people from the burden under which they now laboured, of not being able to contract such marriages, in which they saw no moral or religious harm. But the answer to that was, that they were labouring under no such burden, for Lord Stowell had laid it down that the Ecclesiastical Courts had nothing to do with the customs which regulated the marriages of the Jews, for that on proceedings coming before them, they would only inquire whether the marriage was solemnised according to the rites and ceremonies of the Jews—whether it had been sanctioned by the tribunal called the Bethdin, the authority of which the Jews recognised. With respect to the scriptural prohibition, supposing that considerable doubt existed as to the interpretation to be put on these words, they found that the interpretation put by those who opposed such marriages, was the only one which the Christian Church had recognised from an early period; it was a rule of the Christian Church long before the canon law. They found it not only in the decrees of that Council to which the noble Earl (the Earl of St. Germans) had referred, but declared earlier in the Apostolical Constitutions. The rule thus laid down was based upon an interpretation of the Scripture prohibition which had been universally assumed by the whole Christian Church throughout the world; and it should surely be a matter of grave deliberation whether a Legislature, constituted as ours is, should venture to proclaim that that interpretation was false. If any question were made as to the correctness of that interpretation, it should be referred to some competent tribunal to inquire and decide, as a doubtful point of law was referred to the Judges of the land. So much he had said in order to vindicate himself from the supposition that he had changed his mind; and he had only once for all to state that arguments as to the scriptural prohibition were now more weighty than they had before been with him. With respect to the people of the Continent, he wished to call attention to a significant fact. In France these marriages had been prohibited until 1792, when the law was altered, and the consequence was such a flood of immorality, and such injury to domestic purity, that the Emperor Napoleon had, in his Code Civile, found it necessary to renew the prohibition. In 1832, the law was again changed, and dispensations were allowed to be granted in certain cases—the worst possible state in which the law could be placed; and with respect to the effects of the law in France, he thought their Lordships would not be induced to alter the marriage law of England from any admiration of the present state of society in that country. As to Germany, the facility with which divorces were granted was quite frightful; moreover, it must not be forgotten, that the advocates of this measure had not dissembled that this was the first step towards a general relaxation of those prohibitions on which the purity of our domestic relations, and the peace and happiness of families, so mainly depended. It was said that there existed a very general feeling against such restrictions upon marriage, but he did not believe it—the feeling was quite the other way. And, although it was urged that there were many violations of the law, his answer was that the real cause was ignorance, and the proper remedy was to give the people right education, and to instruct them in religion, and build them more schoolhouses, and send among them more clergymen to teach them the principles of true obedience to the law, and a regard for their obligations to the law of God. If the contrary principle were acted upon (as proposed by this Bill) the effect would be to offer a positive premium for immorality. Whatever feeling existed in favour of the measure, had arisen chiefly in the manufacturing districts, and from causes which had been alluded to; and that the feeling did not prevail in the agricultural districts he could assert, as he could also assert that the change in the law was not proposed for the sake of the poor. The right rev. Prelate read an extract of a letter from an Essex incumbent, declaring that the feeling in the country was decidedly against the Bill. He (the Bishop of London) could further assure their Lordships that the feeling of the female sex was strongly against the measure, as likely to be prejudicial to their social state; and, in conclusion, he would read a passage from the pen of a Lady—expressive (as he believed) of the feeling of her own sex on the subject:— The effect of any alteration of the present lair will be subversive of domestic purity and of social confidence, and it will tend to consequences injurious to the best interests of society. The evil which menaces us, may, I hope, be averted by a strenuous opposition to the Bill, designed, as it is, to effect so unjustifiable and injurious an alteration in the law.

LORD BROUGHAM

would call it one of the most superfluous acts that a man could do if, after the full discussion of the question that had taken place, he should detain their Lordships with any lengthened remarks of his. Nevertheless, as some of his noble and learned Friends thought he should not allow the discussion to close without showing to what extent he agreed with them, he would offer one or two words to their Lordships. At one time he certainly thought there was very much doubt as to whether the present law rested or not on a sound foundation. With regard to the scriptural argument, it would ill become him to give a confident opinion upon it when he found the right rev. Prelates having considerable doubt and no small discrepancy among themselves upon the subject; but this he would say, that all the arguments not connected with the question of divine sanction—all the arguments of a moral and social description, went far more strongly against the marriage of a deceased wife's sister than they went against that which appeared not to be opposed to Scripture, the marriage of a man with a deceased brother's wife. There could be no doubt that what was called Lord Lyndhurst's Bill removed a great defect in our law. That Bill underwent considerable alterations in the other House of Parliament, and Lord Lyndhurst was not, therefore, answerable for the measure that passed into a law; but that it removed a glaring defect in our marriage law there could be no doubt. The expression "voidable" that was used with regard to these marriages under the old law, was a most inaccurate word to use. The truth was, those marriages were void ab initio; but, as it required the sentence of a court of law to declare them void, the expression came to be used that they were voidable. All that the sentence did was to declare the invalidity that already existed, In conclusion, he begged to say that he agreed with those who thought that, whatever decision was come to, the discussion that had taken place upon this question would be attended with a very beneficial result.

The BISHOP of OSSORY

did not rise with any hope of throwing new light upon a question which had been so long before the public, and had been so often and so ably discussed; but believing, as he did, that the measure before the House could not be passed without great danger to the morals of the country, and great injury to its domestic happiness, and without bringing upon the Legislature the guilt of sanctioning what God had forbidden, he felt that he could not be satisfied, even at that late hour, with giving a silent vote against it. When he spoke of the proposed mea- sure as dangerous to the morals of the country, he would have expressed himself much more strongly, but that he felt sure that it must effect a very great change in our domestic habits. For if the same intimate, affectionate, brotherly intercourse, which now so generally exists between them and their wives' sisters, were to continue after the measure had passed, he could not doubt that it would bring sin and sorrow into many a pure and happy home. Constituted as human nature is, those only can live safely on such terms who habitually regard their union in marriage as, at any time, or under any circumstances, impossible. And if it were once declared by the Legislature that a man might lawfully marry his deceased wife's sister, he and she must at all times live on the more reserved footing on which men and women not so connected usually live; and he could not but regard this as a most disadvantageous change in our domestic life. No doubt it would be a lighter evil than that which was to be obviated by it, but he could not regard it as a light evil in itself. He supposed that the relation of brother and sister would be universally assigned a high—not very far from the highest—place among the sources of pure happiness which the natural relations of life supply. And he had always felt that the very next place was due to the extension of the fraternal bond by means of marriage—and especially to the brotherly relation which it established between a husband and the sister of his wife. And if there were no other ground for rejecting the proposed measure, than that, if it were passed, this happy feature of our domestic system must be so entirely changed, he felt that there would be abundant reason for rejecting it. But he felt that at that advanced hour he must not enlarge upon this aspect of the question, but must pass from it to the still more important consideration, namely, whether the word of God affords any means of determining what His will is concerning such marriages as this Bill proposes to legalise. And upon this point he would say at once that he believed that such marriages were prohibited in the word of God; and notwithstanding what had fallen from two of his right reverend Brethren who had preceded him, he must add, that he found this prohibition where the Church had found it—in that passage of Scripture which had been so often referred to in the debate, the 18th chapter of the book of Leviticus, and the connect- ed passages generally referred to. He was aware that there was in the House a great impatience of anything of the nature of a theological discussion. And though he might think this impatience at times excessive, yet so far as it applied to the introduction into the debates of the House of controverted questions in divinity, with a view to discuss and settle them there, he was disposed generally to acknowledge its reasonableness. He admitted that, generally speaking, in the debates of that House, the word of God ought to be referred to only for acknowledged principles and undisputed texts. But it must be felt that even to this reasonable rule there were some reasonable exceptions. And he trusted that their Lordships would feel that the question before them was one of those exceptional cases. In fact, to say nothing else, the opponents of the measure had been distinctly called on to justify their opposition by producing, if they could, a proof that the marriages now proposed to be legalised were forbidden in the word of God. It must be manifest that this call ought not to be left unanswered, and equally plain that it could not be answered without direct reference to the Bible. And, moreover, as no text could be produced on the side of the opponents of the Bill, of which the meaning and application were not disputed by its supporters, it was clear that this challenge could not be met to any useful purpose, merely by the adduction of texts, without some discussion of their meaning. He would be anxious to make this discussion as brief as he could; and he trusted their Lordships would bear with it, as not introduced wantonly, but forced upon him by the necessity of the case. After what had been said and admitted in the course of the debate, he felt that, without troubling their Lordships with any argument on the point, he might assume that the prohibitions in the chapter of Leviticus referred to, were a part of the moral law, and that they related to marriages between persons who were too nearly connected, whether by consanguinity or affinity, to be so united. And in looking at these prohibitions he agreed with those who had gone before him in holding it to be right and necessary to go beyond the letter of the prohibitions, in order to fix their true range and application. And in addition to what had been said in justification of this course, he would remind their Lordships of the full sanction which it had received from the very highest au- thority. The Lord Himself, as every one must remember, conveys to us most distinctly that in looking for the sense of the divine commandments we cannot rest safely in the letter; that, if we do, we shall miss a most important part of their meaning, and so shall act without reference to them in cases in which they ought and were designed to regulate our conduct or our feelings. This the Lord illustrated for us with respect to that most important part of the moral law, the Ten Commandments. He explains that none of these commandments is intended merely to prohibited the particular act which is named specifically and forbidden in it, so that so long as he abstained from that particular act, a man might imagine that he obeyed the commandment, and that he did not fall under the condemnation of the law. He directly leads us, on the contrary, to take the particular act as a symbol or representation of a class of kindred acts, against which the displeasure of the Lawgiver is declared in the commandment; and, moreover, to regard this declaration of His displeasure as extending to all the dispositions and emotions, the habits of thought and feeling, of which it is the natural tendency, in their full development, to issue in such acts. Thus, as he explains it, when God says, "Thou shalt do no murder," He prohibits not merely the violent taking away of a fellow-creature's life, but, at the same time, revenge, malice, wrath, ill-will, in our hearts; and, moreover, all such acts as express such tempers and dispositions in our own breasts, or as are fitted to excite them in the breasts of others. For, when He specifies angry and reproachful language, we must understand, upon the very principles which He is laying down and illustrating, that any outward acts which in the same way exhibit angry feelings, or provoke them, are alike condemned. Now, he thought that it must be felt that the opponents of this measure were only following out and fairly applying this rule of interpretation when they took the 6th verse of the chapter referred to—"None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the Lord"—as laying down the general principle, that nearness of kin was to be a bar to marriage; and when this further regard to the particular prohibitions which follow, not as a full enumeration of all the cases in which marriage was, on such grounds, unlawful, but as examples, intended to illustrate and explain what was the nearness of kin which was contemplated in the general prohibition. Among these particular prohibitions, one was found in the 16th verse—"Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother's wife: it is thy brother's nakedness." This only forbids in terms a marriage with a brother's wife—that is, of course, the wife of a deceased brother; but he thought it was impossible fairly to consider the grounds of the prohibition without feeling that it must be understood, at the same time, to forbid the marriage of a man with his deceased wife's sister. For, connecting this verse with the general prohibition in the 6th verse, we learned from it, that a brother's wife was near of kin to a man in the degree which made it unlawful for him to marry her. But how is his brother's wife near of kin to a man? Manifestly by the effects of marriage. By marriage she has become one with his brother. She is, therefore, his sister, near of kin to him, and he may not take her to wife. But is not his wife's sister in the same way, and for the same reasons, near of kin to him? Has not marriage made him and his wife one, as it has made his brother and his brother's wife one? And is not his wife's sister, therefore, his sister, even as his brother's wife is his sister; the one near of kin to him in the degree in which the other is near of kin to him; and, therefore, marriage with the one a forbidden union, on the same ground on which marriage with the other is forbidden? He saw no mode of escaping from this inference; and, therefore, saw no mode of escaping from the conclusion, that the marriage which they were asked to legalise was one against which the will of God had been most decidedly declared in His word. He might, therefore, end there what he had to say, but that, though no attempt, so far as he knew, had been made to show that this inference was not a legitimate and necessary one, it had been pressed by an objection which he felt bound to notice. It was said that it was plainly inconsistent with the natural and proper sense of the 18th verse of the same chapter. That verse was, "Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, beside the other, in her lifetime." And it was urged that the plain and natural meaning of this verse was, that the union which was here forbidden, during the lifetime, of a man's first wife, ceased to be unlawful after her death. And, if it were so, if the marriage with a deceased wife's sister were permitted, must not the inference from the 16th verse, that such a marriage is unlawful be erroneous, however legitimate and necessary that inference may appear to us? He was not surprised that this appeared a serious objection. It was, undoubtedly, a very plausible one. But he was persuaded that it had no real force; and, though he must then answer it much more hastily than was desirable, yet he trusted that he might be able, even then, to supply the materials for a comple and satisfactory answer to it. He would begin, then, by admitting the interpretation of the verse on which the objection was grounded. He was aware of all that had been said in favour of a different translation of the verse from that which appears in the text of our authorised version; and also of all that had been said to show that, even if we retain the common translation, we are not obliged to infer from it that the marriage with a deceased wife's sister was permitted t6 the Jews. He did not mean to speak slightingly of those attempts; but he was constrained to confess that they did not appear to him to have succeeded. And, without entering upon a discussion which would lead much too far, he would content himself with saying that, in his judgment, the verse is rightly translated in the text of our authorised version; and that, taking it as it stands there, the natural inference from it is, that, to the Jews, the marriage with a deceased wife's sister was not forbidden. But this did not in the least affect his confidence in the correctness of the inference from the 16th verse, that to us such a marriage is forbidden. For it was to be remembered, that, in looking at the ancient moral law for a rule of conduct for Christians, we were not to take the letter, but the principle, of its commands and its prohibitions; that we were to read a precept not in the sense in which the Jew to whom it was given read it, but in the sense in which our now brighter and fuller light enabled us, and therefore bound us, to read it; and, that, therefore the same precept might have a much wider meaning for us than for him; and that it was obligatory on us, not in the narrower but in the wider sense; and that therefore any relaxations or permissions which were granted to the Jew, but which were inconsistent with this wider sense, were not lawful to us, but were forbidden. No one upon consideration could question the soundness of these principles. They are in fact universally received and acted upon. "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," was a precept to the Jew as it is to us. We have it in fact from the Jews. But how different is the range of its meaning to us and to them! To the Jew, when he gave it its widest sense, it brought with it no obligations towards any beyond the limits of his own creed and nation. But from the day that the Lord answered the captious question, "Who is my neighbour?" to all his followers the precept has brought with it the obligation of goodwill, and, so far as means and opportunities allow, good offices to all, of every land and every tongue, every colour, and every creed—to all who share in man's common nature, and wear the image in which he was created.

To take another example. Though slavery had not yet altogether disappeared before Christianity, yet it had to a very great extent; and no one, he supposed, doubted that, to whatever extent Christianity had put an end to this relation, it had been acting on its true principles and fulfilling its proper office; but it was unnecessary to say, for every one knew, that there was not a single prohibition of slavery from one end of the Bible to the other. Indeed, the case was much stronger in justification of the relation, for it was distinctly recognised as a lawful institution in the old dispensation among God's people. But it was recognised in such a form as contained the principle of its abolition under the fuller light of the new dispensation; for the relation was only sanctioned when the slave was of the heathen around them, or of the strangers among them. It was prohibited to them to bring into this relation their brethren of the children of Israel. God himself interposed his own lights over them to prevent such an abuse of power over each other. He reminded them that all were alike His servants, redeemed by Him for himself, out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and that He thus became their Master, so that none of them might be made slaves of any other. The great truth of the brotherhood of the whole human race was not unknown to the Jews. It was known not only that God was the Creator and the Sustainer of all, but that He had made all the children of one earthly father—that He had "made all men of one blood to dwell on all the face of the earth;" but it was, however, only as an historical fact. It was kept out of sight, and for all practical purposes lost, from various causes to which he need not, and indeed could not, then particularly advert. But when Christ came to die for all mankind, and so to deliver all men from that bondage of which the Egyptian bondage was but a type, this great truth of the brotherhood of all men was again promulgated, not as a barren fact, but as a living and operative principle, to be carried out into the conduct of men's lives and the regulation of their feelings; while it was to be remarked, that when that most comprehensive rule of life Which is founded on this truth, "Therefore whatsoever things ye would that men should do unto you, even so do unto them," was promulgated, it was at the same time declared, that however long overlooked or abused it had been, it was the spirit of the whole ancient Scriptures, "for this is the Law and the Prophets." But when this great truth was declared and established, and the true application and range of it given in the precept referred to, and in kindred precepts the abolition of the relation of master and slave was virtually pronounced, however long the execution of the sentence was delayed. It was not to be expected, indeed, that the full bearing of a truth which embraces and regulates such Wide-spread relations, should be at once seen and acted upon; and Christianity being introduced with a wise and beneficial consideration Of the state of society at the time, no precept was given which would at once have violently disturbed the institutions of the world. On the contrary, it appears in the Epistles as an existing relation, for which rules were to be provided for Christians, and directions are actually given for the conduct of Christian masters to Christian slaves, and of Christian slaves to Christian masters. But in the truth of the brotherhood of the whole human race, as members of one redeemed family, there was, as he had said, the principle of the abolition of a relation which seemed plainly inconsistent with brotherhood, and which, under that view, had been forbidden by God among those who felt and acknowledged that they were brethren; and as this truth became more fully apprehended and felt, slavery disappeared, until at length, after other forms of slavery had long passed away under its influence, the plea, "Am I not a man and a brother?" was found of power to strike the fetters even from our negro slaves. And now briefly to apply this to the matter in hand —he would remind their Lordships that it was not more clearly the office of Christianity to abolish all the distinctions which were incompatible with the true relation of mankind to each other through their relation to their common Creator and their common Redeemer, than it was to abolish those distinctions which were incompatible with the relation which woman was brought into existence to bear to man. We were indeed distinctly told so, for in describing the nature of the Christian community into which converts were brought, the Apostle says, that it is one in which "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." In fact, the state of woman in the ancient world was universally a degraded one. It was true that women, from time to time, in the lapse of ages, played a distinguished part on the theatre of life. But it was only as slaves from time to time reached the throne, or as eunuchs commanded armies, that it was only in the way of a rare example of the power of mind and character to raise individuals above all the disadvantages of nature and fortune. But in general woman was degraded from her true position; she was not the helpmeet for man, which she was made to be, but his toy and slave. And this undue subordination existed among the Jews, as in other ancient communities, though in some measure restrained and softened by their institutions, and by their records of the early history of the human family. But still among the Jews woman was below her rank in the social system; and the fruit and evidence of this degradation were found in those corruptions of the institution of marriage which obtained amongst them, as polygamy and divorce. And when woman was to be restored to her proper place in the social system, those corruptions were to be done away. And when the Lord desires to free the marriage relation from those defects which had been admitted into the Mosaic law, as a confession to the hardness of heart of those to whom that law was given, he goes back to the original institution of marriage, which showed clearly that it was God's design that the union should be completely and mutually binding—upon as complete a footing of equality of rights and duties as is compatible with the original superiority of man. He reminds them that at the first God created, not one man and several women, but one man arid one woman: and that it was at the same time declared that a man should leave father and mother, and should cleave unto his wife, and that they twain should be one flesh. And for his followers he abolished that permission of divorce, which however accordant it were with the low and one-sided and erroneous view of the nature of the marriage bond which prevailed among the Jews, was utterly inconsistent with the true and primary conception of it, to which he desired to bring back his followers. Now it was unnecessary to say, that when we take a precept concerning marriage from the ancient law, we are to take it in the sense which the primeval and the Christian view of the nature and obligations of the marriage bond gives to it, not in the sense in which the Jew read it, interpreting it according to his own low and false view of that relation. When the Jew received the prohibition against marrying his brother's wife, we can easily understand why he would not go on to infer from it that his marriage with his wife's sister was forbidden. For while he was alive to the truth that marriage made the wife one with the husband, so that her individuality was lost, and she thenceforth bore the same relations as her husband, he was not in the same way alive to the corresponding truth as regarded the man, and did not feel that he was so made one with his wife, that he thenceforth bore the same relations that she did. And so while he would understand that he was the brother of his brother's wife, he would not understand in the same way, that he was the brother of his wife's sister. And we know that in the way of concession to his casual views and hardness of heart, he was allowed to take two wives, and to send away his wife, though she had not broken the marriage bond; so it might have been allowed to him to take to wife the sister of his deceased wife. But how are we affected by either point? Under the view of the marriage bond which we have received, it is as certain that the husband is one with the wife, as that the wife is one with the husband. It is as certain, therefore, that a man is the brother of his wife's sister, as that he is the brother of his brother's wife; that he is as near of kin to the one as to the other; and that if he may not marry the latter, if it would be unclean to do so, on account of his nearness of his kin to her—and that it is so we are expressly told—then it is certain that he may not marry the former; that it would be unclean in him so to do. And as to the fact if it were so, that it was permitted to the Jews to form such unions, that was a fact which did not affect in any degree the certainty of the inference as regards ourselves; nor did it in any respect weaken its obligation as regards ourselves. Because, as he had before endeavoured to show, not only was every prohibition binding upon us in the sense which it received from the fuller light of the gospel—whether in the way of revealing new relations to us, or giving new and larger views of old relations—but it was not open to us to take advantage of permissions which were granted to those who read the prohibitions in a narrower sense, if those permissions were inconsistent with the larger sense in which the gospel enabled and obliged us to receive the prohibitions. He was conscious that he had been glancing hastily at the points of his argument, rather than exhibiting them with anything like due clearness and fulness. But he trusted that he had at least suggested enough to vindicate the inference drawn from the prohibition in the 16th verse, by doing away with the apparent objection to it which had been drawn from the implied permission in the 18th verse. And at that advanced stage of the debate, that was the utmost that he could venture to attempt.

The EARL of ST. GERMANS

My Lords, the most rev. Prelate who moved the rejection of this Bill, expressed a hope that we should hand down unimpaired to our posterity the marriage law which we have received from our forefathers. I do not know whether the most rev. Prelate speaks of the law as it existed before the passing of Lord Lyndhurst's Act, or since: they are very different things. Practically before 1835, these marriages were good marriages, that is to say, they were seldom or never set aside. Now, they are absolutely null and void. The most rev. Prelate has not said positively that they are forbidden by the law of God, but that it may be doubted whether they are not so forbidden, and that it is therefore safer to abstain from them. That is an opinion not shared by the two right rev. Prelates who spoke later in the debate (the Bishops of St. David's and Norwich). They think that these marriages are not forbidden in Scripture, and they oppose this Bill on social grounds only.

The right rev. Prelate who spoke immediately after the most rev. Prelate, made a statement which I heard with astonishment. Defending himself from the charge of inconsistency in having supported a Bill to legalise marriages which he thinks incestuous, he told your Lordships that he had ascertained that parties who had contracted the marriages legalised by the Act of Parliament might nevertheless be proceeded against in the Ecclesiastical Courts for incest, and might be separated. Did the right rev. Prelate tell the House at the time that this would be the case? Is it credible that Parliament would have passed a law to prevent the annulling of these marriages, and yet have permitted the Ecclesiastical Court to punish persons having contracted them as being guilty of incest, and to compel their separation? Have, in fact, any such proceedings taken place since the passing of the Act?

The right rev. Prelate has said, that these marriages are prohibited by the law of God; but he has failed to point out any such prohibition either in the Old Testament or in the New. The right rev. Prelate has spoken disparagingly of the report of the Marriage Commissioners, and of their mode of conducting the inquiry. The commissioners are men whose reputation needs no vindication, and I shall not presume to offer any. The right rev. Prelate has pointed out one or two statements in the report which he says are not supported by the evidence. It is stated in the report that the Protestant States of Europe, with the exception of some of the cantons of Switzerland permit these marriages to be solemnised by dispensation or licence. The right rev. Prelate says, that this is an incorrect statement as regards the Swiss cantons. I admit it; but the statement of the right rev. Prelate as drawn from the evidence is also incorrect. He says that these marriages are permitted in only one canton. The evidence given as to the practice in Switzerland is to be found in a letter to M. Bach from a professional friend of his at Lausanne. The writer says, that marriage with a wife's sister is permitted only in one canton, but that marriage with a wife's niece is, he believes, permitted in all the Protestant cantons.

The right rev. Prelate tells us, that many Prussians blush at the state of the marriage law in Prussia. This may be, but the evils which they deplore, arise out of the facility with which divorces are obtained, and not out of the permission to contract marriage with the sister of a deceased wife. M. Bach is asked, "Are marriages of this description in Germany to be considered at all contra bonos mores?" The reply is— Not at all. So far from their being considered contra bonos mores, the feeling of the people of Germany is undoubtedly in favour of such marriages. And the feelings of the women of Germany are so strong in favour of such marriages that it often occurs that the last parting request by a wife on her death-bed to her husband is to marry her sister in case he should feel inclined to marry again. This arises partly from affection for her surviving husband or relations, that he may not become estranged from her connexions, and partly from affection to her sister, and very frequently where there are young children for their sake. He is then asked— 'Are you aware of any evil consequences from the celebration of marriages of this description?' 'None whatever. I am not at all aware of any.' 'Then you are of opinion that such marriages have not led to any laxity of morals whatever.' 'Undoubtedly not.' So much for the effect of these marriages in Prussia. The right rev. Prelate has said, that these marriages are prohibited by the Greek Church. Doubtless they are, but so are marriages within the seventh degree. Moreover, as I before told your Lordships, these marriages are not prohibited by the Greek Church as being contrary to the law of God, but as being inconsistent with the discipline of the Church.

The noble and learned Lord (Lord Campbell) has, no doubt, stated the law correctly; but he has stated it so as to produce an erroneous impression on your Lordships' minds. As I have said, the Judges hold that the 28th Henry VIII., c. 7, was revived by implication, by the revival of the 28th Henry VIII., c. 16, in which reference is made to it; and that, consequently, the Levitical degrees mentioned in the 32nd Henry VIII., c. 38, are to be taken to be the degrees specified in the 28th Henry VIII., c. 7.

Mr. Justice Coleridge, in Chadwick's case, distinctly said, that the Court was not examining what God's law was, nor what the Levitical degrees were, but it was examining the 32nd Henry VIII., c. 38; and that, if the Legislature had mistaken God's law, yet, if the meaning of the Act of Parliament was clear, the Court was bound to act on their misinterpretation. The noble and learned Lord has adverted to the opinion of Lord Denman, as expressed on the occasion of that trial. I am happy to be able to inform the noble and learned Lord that Lord Denman is desirous of supporting this Bill. I have received a note from him to that effect. I mention this, as I fear that the state of Lord Denman's health will prevent him from voting to-night. The noble and learned Lord has said, that to pass a retrospective Act legalising marriages that are now null and void, would be a thing unheard of. Was not this very thing done by Lord Lyndhurst's Act? He has also told your Lordships that if you legalise these marriages, you will be called on to legalise bigamy. Bigamy is forbidden by our Saviour—these marriages are not. This is a sufficient reason why these marriages should be legalised, and why bigamy should not. I must again remind your Lordships, that the clergymen of some of the most populous parishes describe in strong language the evils caused by the existing law. Mr. Dale, Mr. Gurney, Mr. Champneys, Mr. Villiers, Dr. Hook, all consider it as most mischievous in its effects among the poor.

I will trespass no longer on your Lordships' attention. I have, indeed, omitted to notice some of the arguments that have been used by the opponents of this Bill; but having shown, as I believe, that the marriages which it is proposed to legalise are not contrary to the law of God, or inconsistent with the interests of society, and that the existing law is productive of great evil, I will say no more. One question, indeed, I must ask your Lordships permission to answer. The noble and learned Lord inquired why Scotland is excluded from the operation of this Bill. The reason is a simple one. The Act which this Bill amends does not apply to Scotland.

On Question, that "now" stand part of the Motion, their Lordships divided:—Content 16; Not-Content 50: Majority 34.

List of the CONTENTS.
MARQUESS.	VISCOUNT.
Clanricarde	Gage
	BARONS.
	Auckland
EARLS.	Beaumont
Bessborough	Camoys
Cowper	Overstone
Essex	Say and Sele
Grey	Wharncliffe
Lanesborough	Wodehouse
St. Germans	Wrottesley

List of the NOT-CONTENT.
Archbishop of Canterbury	MARQUESSES.
	Winchester
The Lord Chancellor	Breadalbane
Archbishop of York	Exeter

EARLS.	Rochester
Enniskillen	Chichester
Erne	Oxford
Granville	Norwich
Hardwicke	Hereford
Harewood	St. David's
Mountcashel	Peterborough
Nelson	Ossory
Powis	Cork
Romney	BARONS.
Selkirk	Bayning
Somers	Blayney
Waldegrave	Braybroke
Winchilsea	Crewe
VISCOUNTS.	Campbell
Hereford	Cranworth
Strangford	Colohester
BISHOPS.	Dufferin
London	De Tabley
Winchester	Dunsany
Ripon	Feversham
Lincoln	Poltimore
Salisbury	Redesdale
Exeter	Sondes

Resolved in the Negative; Bill to be read 2^a on this day six months.

House adjourned to Friday next.