The Sun.
London, England, 1857-06-10 00:00:00

adding the punishment of imprisonment to that of fine,
because it savoured more of disgrace than a mere money
payment would, and it ought to be the policy of the
Legislature to do all in its power to brand this offence
with infamy. He should later on move a clause to make
it lawful for the Court to impose imprisonment as well
as a fine, and also to give power to apply any part or
the whole of the fine to paying the cost of the proceed-
ings.

-Clauses 22 to 25 were agreed to.
The LORD CHANCELLOR proposed a clause after
clause 25, providing for the imposition of a flue on adul-
terous partied.
The Bishop of OXFORD proposed an amendment,
that the adulterous parties should be liable to " fine and
imprisonment, or fine or imprisonment," and that it
should be lawful to apply the fine to pay the whole or a
portion of the costs of the proceedings.
The LORD CHANCELLOR thought it would be
better to limit the punishment to fine, as this was the
first time that such a principle bad been introduced into
the law.
Lord DUNGANNON supported the amendment, as
a fine only would be of very little effect in the case of
wealthy persons,.
Lord CAMPBELL thought it would be better to keep
by the flue alone. In some cases a husband might feel
reluctance and even horror at taking a course which
might send his wife, even though guilty, to prison.
The Duke of NORFOLK observed that in some cases
a heavy fine would fall as a punishment upon the chit.
dren.
The Bishop of OXFORD reminded their lordship
that imprisonment was not rendered imperative by his
amendment. It might be inflicted in extreme cases, but
these would be very rare.
The LORD CHANCELLOR could imagine nothing
more revolting to the mind of a man whose wife had been
unfaithful to him than the reflection that he could not
obtai❑ a divorce without subjecting her to imprisonment.
Lord BROUGHAM objected to the amendment,
which gave a court a power to inflict a heavy punish-
ment of imprisonment without the intervention of a jury.
No doubt the sole action of a court was sometimes use-
ful, as in cases of insolvency or bankruptcy, but it was
not the same in respect of criminal proceedings.
The Bishop of OXFORD observed that, by a new
clause which would be proposed, there would be a trial
before a jury.
Eai 1 GREY said, as they were about for the first time
to make divorce a part or the law of the land, it was
necessary to guard against that change by every possible
precaution. A. pecuniary fine might be sufficient in some
cases, .but there were others in which it, would be totally
inadequate. There were special cases in which justice
could only be done by punishing the guilty parties by
imprisonment. In cases where a designing woman had
entrapped a man into adultery with the desire of being
detected, a fine would be of little use. Such cases might
be rare, but that they did sometimes occur was a matter
of history.
The committee then divided, when there appeared—
For the amendment 43
Against it 33
Majority —lo
The amendment was consequently carried, and the
clause as thus amended was agreed to.
Ciauses up to 44 were agreed to.
Uyon clause 45, the clause in which, on the motion of
the Archbishop of Canterbury, words were inserted pro-
hihiting persons divorced after being proved guilty of
adultery from marrying again, •
The LORD CHANCELLOR proposed an amend-
ment, •he effect of which, he said, would be to rest ,re
the clause to the condition in which it originally stood,
and to allow guilty parties to marry again. Without enter-
ing into the Scriptural argument, he put it to his right
rev. friends, could there be anything more scandalous
than an Act of Parliament which should compel a wo-
man to remain single, or, what was very probable,
should f :roe her into prostitution ? (Hear, hear.) Un-
der any circumstances such a thing ought to be avoided ;
but lit their lordships observe what an injustice they
were perpetrating when they left the adulterer free to
marry, while placing a prohibition upon the woman di-
vorced in consequence of his licentiousness. He thought
for his own part, that there ought to be no restiiction ;
that a divorced wife eight to be at liberty to mai ry the
adulterer or any one else, for he believed there was a
large class of persons upon whom the apprehension of
being yoked for life with their paramours would have a
stronger restraining influence than either fine or impri-
sonment. (Hear, hear )
Lord BROUGHAM expressed his cordial approval of
the amendment.
The Archbishop of CANTERBURY, who was very
imperfectly heard, was understood to say that both upon
Scriptural grounds and for reasons of public morality he
did not think that guilty persons ought to be permitted
to marry again. He would therefore oppose the amend-
ment.
The Duke of ARGYLL stated that several noble earls
had voted for the introduction of the words proposed by
the Archbishop of Canterbury upon the supposition that
they amouated merely to a prohibition of marriage be-
tween paramours. He could not believe that a majority
of their lordships would wish to condemn a person guilty
of adultery to perpetual celibacy, or probably to a life of
immorality. It was not improbable that scme so-called
amendments had been proposed with a view to the re-
jection of the bill elsewhere. (Hear, hear.)
The Feed of DERBY said the amendment of the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, which it was now proposed to ex-
purge, did not condemn the guilty party to perpetual
celibacy. It provided that the husband or wife guilty
of adultery should not marry while the husband or w,fe
who had obtained a divorce continued to live. If that
provision were removed they would have the anomaly of
a person divorced a vioculo being in a better position
than a person divorced a !nerve et thorn, because the
latter could not but the former could, wary in the life-
time of the person from which they were divorced.
Earl GREY explained that o❑ the former evening ho
voted for the amendment of the Archbishop of Canter-
bury, LecetNe be did not wish to see divorce a vinculo
given without some safeguard; but, he thought it ill ful-
filled that ;Jeri-pee, and, as they had now made adultery
liable to punishment, not only by fine but by imprison-
ment, he should vote with the Lord Chanced ,r to have
it struck cut.
The Bishop of OXFORD said the object should be
to surround the innoce t with the greatest numeer of
guards, rather than to leave the gu lty exposed to the
possible inconvenience of marrying their paramours.
That was most eminently the character of the proposi-
tion of the Archbishop of Canterbury. All experience
showed that the purity of civilised society depended
more upon the absolute chastity of the woman rather
than the principle of the roan. The temptation to sin
assailed the ma❑ and the woman on two opposite sides
of their character. In the man the great temptation was
the gratification of appetite, but it was not so in the
woman. The late Mr. Coleridge, in one of his admirable
essays on the relation between the two sexes, expressed
the idea so forcibly that he would quote the words,—
" The desire of the man is for the woman ; the desire of
the woman is for the desire of the man." That was to
ray, that the woman was led astray, not by the direct
temptetion of sensual appetite, but by the proffer of affec-
tion—by the promise that what in early I,fe she trusted
to be to her husband, but had fa led in being—r.a•nely,
the object of attachment and affection—she would be to
the tempter. Those married women who had fallen from
the direct temptation of appetite were very rare exeep-
tioree, and in 99 cases out of 100 they fell, became their
marriage had been unhappy in its coneequeeces. To say,
therefore, that the woman should not marry for the natu•
ral lifetime of the husband she dishonoured was to take
away from the tempter a prevailing bait and to give an
additional safeguard to her remaining innocent. Let
their• lordships remember what the proviso was that was
embodied in the clause at the instance of the most rev-
prelate (the Archbishop of Canterbury.) It was not in
any sense put in as a penalty upon either party that
they should be prohibited from marrying longer than
they would have been prohibited .rose marrying another
if they had not sinned. The innocent party was allowed
under the clause to marry again, and was it an extreme
punishment to say to the guilty person that he or she
should *not'ruarry again during the lifetime of the party
from whom he or she was divorced ? It seemed to him
monstrous to represent that as an outrageous violation o.
liberty.
After a few words from Loris DE Roe and DIINPAN
NON,

The committee divided on the question that "the
words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause,'
when the numbers were—
Content
Not content
Majority in favour of the Lord
Chancellor's motion.

04
46

-22

The result of this clivision was to expunge from the
bill the pr,,vi.o carried on a former occasion, on the mo-
tion of the Archbishop of Canterbury, prohibiting the
husband or wife convicted of adultery frnn contracting
another marriage during the life of the wife or husband
from whom they had been divorced.

' Lord WENSLEYDALE then moved to add a pro-
viso that either party should not marry the person with
whom the adultery was proved to have been committed,
and the Court in its decree for a divorce was to name
that person.
The Marquis of LANSDOWNE Could not assent to
the amendment, which he thought would not tend prac-
tically to pr )mote the interests of religion and morality.
He believed that in cases of this description women were
generally led into error by passion, and those who had
lived long in the world were aware of the feeling with
which women who had so erred were regarded by their
own sex. Even if women who had thus fallen remarried,
they were still in a position of great degradation, and it
was difficult to estimate the punishment they suffered.
The object of legislation should be to provide for the re-
formation of offenders after they bad suffered punishment
for their crimes, but he believed the effect of this amend-
ment, by depriving a woman of the opportunity of
marrying her partner in sin, would be to degrade her
utterly, and to drive her to a course of prostitution.
When they dealt with a burglar or a perjurer they al-
ways supposed that he might by repentance be qualified
to resume, in some measure, that position in society
which he had occupied before he became a
; and were they in the case of a woman
alone to refuse the opportunity of reformation, a!-
though experience had shown that women who had
violated the marriage vow had subsequently be-
come faithful wives and good mothers, and bad shown
themselves deserving of that limited respect which could
be gained by persons under such circumstances t He
agreed with a great legal authority who hal said that
cas es of this description ought to be dealt with accord.
ing to the particular circumstances of each case, and he
con sidered that the discretion ought to be left to the
con rt. This amendment, however, if it should be
adopted, would deprive the court of any discretionary
pow er.
The Bishop of OXFORD, in supporting the amend-
ment, observed that it was unnecessary to repeat the
arguments ke had urged on a former occasion, but be