The Sun.
London, England, 1858-07-24 00:00:00

THIRD READINGS.

On the mn,ion of Lord REDESDNLE, the Great
Southern of India Railway Company, the Lancashire,
York hire, and East LancashirA Railway Compary ;
Limerick and Castle Connell Rail way, and South
Wa!es Railway (New Railway) bills were read a third
time and passel.

ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH COMPANY'S BILL.
On the motion that Ibis bill be read a third time,

Theßll 1 f DERBY moved the insertion of a clause
which would place the American on the same looting as
the English company.
A short conversation ensued between Lord REDES-
DALE and Lord ST&NLEY of ALDLULEY, at the tvrinina-
'ion of which the third reading way postponed until
Monday nsxt.
MARRIAGE LAW AMENDMENT BILL.

Lord GAGE said he had mo,t unexpec%edly been called
upon to propose the second reading of this bill, and no-
thing short of the importance of the questi,:n involved in
the bill could have induced him to have undertaken the
tisk. The measure to which he now asked their lord-
to give a second reading was to remeriy a grievance
of which a large p:.rtion of the ponulat ion of the country
complain( d, and they naturally 1,.P.; that redress would
be given, provided their lordship saw no sound reason
,ga;nat (king so. If they rjected the bill then those who
were in favour of it soul i came to the cmclusion that
there did exist some reasons shy the relief nowscught for
.4hou'd not he given. He hail heard it said that there i-xis!ed
both 6Tiritnal and religious reason:l%l:y such-a hi'l should
not pass, but whenever the oljectors to the measure had
been adtad to point out the Scriptural olj-ctions they had
invariably failed to do so. A ereat, de;.l of importance
bad been attributed to a panicular chapter in the B idk
of L.viticup, tut he contended that ncthimz in the verse
forba-!e a man to marry his deceased wife's silt: r— (hear)
—on the contrary, he (Lord Gage) was of opinion
that the verse gave, a clear permissEion to con-
tract such a marriage ; and ho was further of opinion
the canons of the Church and not the law of Ged
forbade the marriage. Toe noble lord then al-
luded to the coeial view of the vestion, and
said he believed that the wife's sister would
form a much better stepmother to the wlL's children
than a total stranger. He also tillud,:(l to the increasing
msj irities by which the bill bad pa god tl? House of
Commons, and declared that there was a :strong feeling
in favour cf the bill throughout the countr

Lord REDESDALE said the noble viscount had
treated this question on two grounds, the religious
ground and the social ground. As regarded the religious
view of the subject, it was impossible to deny that the
tex s moat referred to were open to varicue interpreta-
tions, but when difficulties arose they should be guided
by a ooneider..tion of the consequences which would na
turally flow from a lax interpretation. The real question
in this case was, " What is marriege; what isthe relatien-
ship thereby established ? ' They were distinctly t hi in
Scripture that the man and vele became " one flesh,"
and ta a% b ing the case the relations of the one neces-
itari;y became the relations of the Othe”. (Hear.) Unless
thet simple principle were acted upon, society ine-
vitably got involved in difficulties from which there was
no wave. The noble viscount had asked who o •uld ex
pest anything but objections to the bill from women ?
In that view he entirely concurred. This was purely a
woman's bill. The man di I not propose that his wife
should have a right to marry his bro'her, but he came
forward with his own lustful purposes and said, " Let
me marry my wife's sitter," the two standing in precisely 1
the same position as regarded affinity. (Hear.) If this
bill passed, why should they not go further 1 Why should
not a man be allowed to marry his stemieteghter ? There
was nn blood relationship in that eve ? (Elear.) Or why
should not a stepson marry his father's widow ? From
such things as these the minds cf all men naturally
shrunk ; and yet there was no security against them if
you once got rid cf the deduc:ions arieing from the fact
of man and wife being one flesh. What wag a man to
call his wife's sister if this bill passed ? Was he still to
call her sister or was he to call her consin ? If she were
his sliver during his wife's life, she was also his sister
after her death. The canon which prohibited these mar-
riages was almost as old as the church itself, and was by
no mean', as it had been represented to be, an innova-
tion of the time of the Reformation. As to the bill of
1835, that bill did not alter the law on the suljzct any
further than this, that whereas before the marriage was
voi.lable if anybody chose to object to it, it was then
made veid frnm the beginning. As regarded the social
ground, it appeared to. him that the greateA possible in-
jury woul I be d6ne in families if the near and cloea re-
lationship which existed between persons connected by
marriage were interfered with, as it necessarily would
be by this bid. It was said that there had always been
a great number ef persons who bad evaded the restric-
tion, and that this was a reason for altering the law. If
they were merely to consider how many persons gratified
their sensual appetites without the sanction of the law,
there were a number of other things to which, this argil.•
meet would apply. He feared that if they went among
the dwellings of the lower orders they would find in many
quarters connexions existing which no one would think
of sanctioning by law. (Hear.) In all the attempts which
had been made to alter the law difficuldes had arisen
-from the nature of the connexion between a man and his
wife's sister. In the first bill which was iutroduced for
that purpose after the passing cf the Lill of 1835, there
was a clause providing that the marriage should not be
allowed if there had been any adulterous connexion be-
tween the parties during the lifetime of the deceased.
Thus deceased wife's sister was placsd on a different foot-
ing from other women. In the present bill, the seco.:d
clause provided that a past marriage should not be valid
if either of the parties to it had contracted a second mar-
riage with another person. That was a clause which
would give rise to great difficulty. The bill coefined the
right to any dignity, title, or honour to those to whom
it was vested before the passing of the act. A very curi-
ous question might arise out of that clause taken in con-
nection with the sth. By the latter, Ireland and Scotland
were excluded from the operation of the bill, not only as
regarded dignities, titles, and honours, but also as re-
garded property ; and as there were many members of
that house who held titles in the three kingdoms the re-
sult might be that one set of children would be legiti-
mate as regarded one set of titles, and another set of
children as regarded another set of titles. The meaeure
appeared to him to be both imperfect in itself and highly
objectionable in principle; he believed that social evils
of the gravest character would arise from the pasting: of
it ; he believed it to be contrary to the kw of God ; and
entertaining these views, he felt bound to move that it
be read a second time that day six months. (Cheers )
Lord LYNDHURST said he had not risen to address
their lordships on the general question, but the noble.
lord who had juetspoken having alluded to the bill wb tebl
was passed in 1835, and with which his nanaa was con- 1
nected, he wished to give a brief history of that bill. His
attention was drawn to the state of the law with respect
to marriages that were voidable during the joint lives of
the parties. The consequence was that the ultimate
status of the children must remain uncertain for 10, 20,
30, or even 50 years. A person might have been brought
up as the heir of his parents, expecting to succeed in the
ordinary way to the family estates under a settlement,
and all at once, after be had married, and when he was
the father cf children, a proceeding [night be instituted
for annulling the marriage of hie parerox, and the remit
he his being bastardised. He considered this a very cruel
and inconvenient state of the law, and the object of the
bill which he brought in was to provide a remedy. The
bill had nothing to do with the disallowance of the mar-
riage ; its object was to protect the legitimacy of the
chit 'ren, it bring provided that if that were not ques-
tioned within two yetrs it should not be questioned at
all. He said nothing with regard to the parents ; his
proposidun was coefieed to the children. He had in his
band a espy of the bill as it was laid on their lordships'
table. The title of it was, " An Act to limit the time for
cenimencing suits in the Ecolesiaetical Courts, so far as
they may affect the children of parents married within
the prohibited degrees. The bill related only to parents
and was ordered to be printed in the firm iu which be
proposed it, on the first of June, 1835. Thera was but
one enacting clause, and it was as follows : —" Whereas
the chi:dien of parents married within the prohibited de-
grees are by law legitimate, unieFs such marriages be de-
-1
clared void by sentence of the Ecdesirstio 'Court during
the life-ime of their parents, and it being unreasonable
and unjust that the state and condition of children
born under such circumstances should remain tined-