The Sun.
London, England, 1859-03-24 00:00:00

THE MARRIAGE LAW.

The debate on the Marriage bill on Tuesday
exhibited the usual amount of biblical criticism.
Lord Wodehouse had deeply and laboriously con-
sidered the chapter in Leviticus, and was armed
with his interpretation of it. So were Lord
Albemarle and Lord Lifford. In fact, certain
speakers in both houses are possessed once
a-year with a deep acquaintance with Levi-
ticus. A great display takes place, and members
begin to talk as if they were Doctors of Divinity.
The next year we have it all over again, Leviticus,
Deuteronomy, the Councils, the Canons. There are
the same quotations, the same interpretations, and
the same suprise that any other interpretations can
possibly be given. We do not feel called upon to
enter into this part of the question. Whatever may
be the interpretation of Leviticus, as a Christian
nation we are undoubtedly deeply interested in the
institution of marriage, and are justified in protect-
ing it in every way we can which is not unfairly
burdensome and scrupulous.
It is hardly denied that there would be enormous
social disadvantages attending an abolition of the
present law. This class of evils may be considered
to be overruled by other claims, but the fact of their
existence is not disputed. Lord Wodehouse, indeed,
by way of show of argument, says that a respect-
able man would be more influenced by the fact of
his wife's existence than by any Act of Parliament;
but, however respectable a man may be, he cannot
help the fact that by the abolition of this law
his wife's sister immediately becomes a person
whom he may one day marry. That is a change
of relationship which is made for him. The
question then is, has the law a right to interfere
to pre7ent a class of acknowledged evils in the
sphere of marriage ? It has undoubtedly the right
to do this in every other case ; has it no right to
do this in the case of marriage ? We observe
that some speakers maintain an unlimited Jus
Divinum in marriage. Lord Albemarle talks of
the present law as " a gross violation of the
rights of conscience," as if a man was made to com-
mit a sin by not marrying his wife's sister if he
liked her. Marriage, then, is entirely sacred from
the interference of the law in the opinion of these
speakers, and the " right of conscience" must pre-
vail against all considerations of expediency, how-
ever clear and certain. We have no right to con-
sider the general good of society, the general
security of married life itself, or anything else ;
everything must give way to the simple alleged
Divine right, or natural right, •that a man has to
marry any woman whom he wants to marry. But
this is an extreme view. We cannot, as members
of society, argue the question:upon abstract grounds
simply. We are bound to consider the general
good in the way in which we deal with marriage,
and cannot ignore plain and strong expediency
when we see it.

The only real question is, then, whether the
grievance of such a prohibition as this is so heavy
and severe as to outweigh all the acknowledged
considerations of expediency the other way, and
on this point we are prepared to join issue. We
cannot see, for our own part, that any real
grievance is made out. What is the state of the
case ? Our ill-used widower comes after a certain
time to consider the question of a second marriage.
He has the whole female world to choose from, with
one exception, and that is his wife's sister, whom
he knows it is illegal to marry. Are his affections,
then, so entirely beyond his own control as that,
knowing the prohibition of the law in that one
single quarter, while all the rest of the world is
free to him, he must needs overlook the whole
female world which is open to him, and devote
himself to the one object which is forbidden ? He
will find it very difficult to persuade any candid,
reasonable man, that there is not considerable
perversity or great weakness in such a choice
as this. We really cannot tell him that he has
any great grievance. Grievances are comparative
things ; anything may, by brooding over it, be
swelled into a grievance, but the question is
whether, considering the fair amount of sacrifice
which society has a right to expect from the indi-
vidual in return for the immeasurable benefits
which it confers upon him,he has any right to talk
of himself as a poor, ill-used man, and a martyr to
the tyranny of law. Is this the only prohibition,
we should like to know, to a man's marrying a
woman whom he likes ? One would imagine, from
the way in which some persons talk, that it was,
and that, if it were removed, the "right of con-
science" would have full swing, and not a single
obstacle stand in the way of the matrimonial Jits
Divinum. But everybody is aware that matrimony
is a subject which teems with obstacles. She is the
most vexed, harassed, delayed, thwarted, shackled,
and chained divinity in the whole Pantheon. Alt
kinds of social obstacles encounter her—differences
of rank, fortune, religion, age, will of parents on
the one side or on the other. What proportion of

men have married the first woman whom they
wanted to marry ? A choice was made, affections
were bestowed, perhaps the lady herself was not
unwilling ; but obstacles arose, and the consequence
was, that the lover, barred in one quarter took
refuge in another. We do not say this to defend
one single additional obstacle to marriage on the
part of the law, if it is unnecessary and gratuitous;
still the prohibition now in question is, as a matter
of fact, only one small and narrowly operating re-
striction of the law, which comes at the tail of a
whole host of social restrictions. It is not as if
men were wholly unaccustomed to be thwarted
on the subject of marriage. Thousands and
thousands have every day to make a second choice,
because obstacles stand in the way of the first.
A man who discovers in himself a year or so
after his wife's death the secret beginnings of an
attachment to her surviving sister has, if he checks
the rising feeling only a trial to go through
which fifty thousand people :go through
_every day
in a much more severe form. These impediments in
i
the world of matrimony are ndeed so common that
society speaks of them not always in a very grave
or sympathetic tone. We do not for a moment join
in such hardheartedness; there are few more dis-
agreeable things to bear; still we must observe
that people in general joke a good deal about these
sad matters, and they would not do so if they were
not a very comm on form of human trial.
Does the existing law, then, secure any large
and important advantages? Does it act as a safe-
guard to married life ? Is it of real service to the
relations between the husband and his wife's sisters?
Does it put the matrimonial connections on the
proper basis, set people at their ease, and stop the
very first unfaithful or awkward thought in lunine?