The Sun.
London, England, 1850-05-16 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 1850.

After a tedious delay, produced by a most unfair

and unwarrantable abuse of the privileges of Parlia-
ment, the Marriages Affinity Act is again about to he
pought under the consideration of the House of
Commons. We trust that its opponents may on the
present occasion have some regard to decency, and

that the country may not again be called uron to
witness the strange spectacle of a perverse and
factious minority obstructing the progress of public
opinion, and frustrating the wishes of a
large and, decisive majority of their fellow-Legis-
lators. Cases may possibly arise where the power
of moving the adjournment of the debate may be
useful. It may prevent a matter of deep importance
from being disposed of without due consideration.
But such a course cannot often be resorted to with
impunity, and if it be tried a second time on the
same question some decisive step must and will be
taken to remove the impediment. If a system so
unfair and so unworthy be resorted to, it is within
the power of any two or three Members to pledge
themselves to prevent the progress of any business,
public or private, until the subject in which they
feel interested be fully discussed and fairly de-
cided on its real merits. In ordinary cases, such
a course might seem in some degree objectionable,
but under the peculiar circumstances of Mr. STUART
WORTLEY!S Bill, and the fierce and unrelenting hos-
tility to which that just and salutary measure has
been subjected, it would be not merely justifiable, but
imperatively called for, and the parties by whom it
was adopted would be sustained by the voice of
public opinion, as well within as outside the walls of
Parliament.
We have felt it our duty to throw out this hint,
and also to impress upon the friends of civil and re-
ligious liberty to attend in their places this evening.
Long since we stated that the Fabian po-
licy, which was, unfortunately, but too suc-
cessful last year, would again be resorted
to, that every advantage would be taken
which the forms of the House allowed, or circum-
stances permitted. The proceedings up to the pre-
sent moment prove that the assumption was fully
borne out. Already have ten weeks been consumed
since the introduction of the Bill, and the House has
not yet gone into Committee thereon. The same
system cf vexatious procrastination will sti'l be
adopted if its supporters be not true to themselves
and to their constituents, and determined to prevent
the success of such unworthy manoeuvres.
A morning contemporary, which has take a promi-
nent part against the Bill, seems surprised

that the question has been connected with that a

religious liberty ;" that " the sacred rights of con-
science enjoyed by the people of this country are
thought to be attacked when the provisions of the
measure are blamed and its adoption resisted." Such
is indeed the case, and we rejoice at the fact that has
thus been admitted. What more sacred right can be
attacked than that of choosing a consort, one that is
indeed to be a partner and helpmate in all the rela-
tions of life—in prosperity or adversity, in health
or sickness, through good report or through bad
report, whose interests will indeed be one and
indivisible ? But this great privilege is to be
relinquished by those who owe no allegiance,
who are not members of the Church of England as
by law established, because a certain class of
marriages are asserted to be contrary to one of the
canons of that Church. The canon has already been
set aside by the authority of Parliament, when it

was enacted, in 1835, that all such marriages that had

been previously celebrated should thenceforth be
valid and binding on the parties. If there be any
scriptural law, any physical objections to such con-
nexions, they must apply equally to those celebrated
before as well as after the passing of the sth and 6th
Wm. IV., c. 54. But the former are good to all intents
and purposes, while the latter are declared null
and void, and the innocent offspring branded with
the stamp of illegitimacy, and perhaps deprived of the
inheritance of their ancestors.

Before the Reformation there were many prohibi-
tions against marriages. It was forbidden in the
Roman Catholic Church with cousins as well as with
sisters-in-law ; but in both instances dispensations

were easily obtained. With the power of dispensa-
tion the Reformation swept away the one restriction,
hut that with sisters-in-law was retained, in order to
gratify the lust of a sanguinary tyrant, who could not
venture to consign his first wife to the hands of the
public executioner, as he did some of her successors ;
and it was subsequently retained by a time.serving
archbishop toLconciliate the Sovereign under whom
he served, and whose legitimacy depended on the
point. And this is, in fact, the foundation of the so-
called canon, to which not only the members of the
Church of England, and all persons, without distinc-
tion of creed, are called upon to yield implicit obe-
dience. Well may Dissenters object to have their
liberty of conscience restrained, and their right of
interpreting for themselves the Holy Scriptures inter-
fered with for such a cause.

It is true that the great majority of the opponents
of the measure have now abandoned the scriptural ar-
gument, that was formerly so strongly relied upon,
as- utterly untenable. The 18th Leviticus, v. 18, is
no longer triumphantly quoted. In fact it is so
manifest that the prohibition was only of a limited
character, continuing during the lifetime of the first
wife, and intended to prevent, at a period when
polygamy was recognised, the inconvenience of such
unions as the Patriarch formed with LEAH and
RACHEL. "Neither shalt thou take a wife to her
sister, to vex her, * * * besides the other in her
lifetime." What is the object of the prohibitio n ?
Not from any physical or natural obstacles, but
simply for the sake of the former wife,
to prevent her from being vexed at be-
holding a rival in her sister ; and for what
time is the rule to prevail ? . Cessat ratio
cessat lea—for the life:of the first wife only, because
after her death she can no longer be vexed ; and there-
f.'re t:ricre is the addition of " besides the other in
her: lifetime." We cannot, indeed, conceive how any
person could use such an argument, which is, in fact,
6re°gnalruded as a
sive°ntchleeaortpeherrmsiisdsei side; forto it may, I
sauch fact,be
mar-
riage, after the wife's death, the
expressly limited to her 'lifetime prohibition being
then, is the authority of4ere, the DEITY despised
creatures. and overruled by his
maybe--mom
b—man forbids
The Casazoa
declares that such marriages
them, and tales uponhimselfbtoicalyeivsetr o
i3e obeyed ?
those whom
we
e
GOD bath joined together;
.vi
the conscientious
e have
set the
or d
Dissenter
of
G exclaim,
claait nmought
with
St. ayAmtm, ,
with your traditions," rind refuse
`obedience" •mace to such
a rule.

1
The argument from " social inexpediency"—.that
wh?ch is now chiefly relied on, is no lees iuntenable.
Why sbould.it be presumed that a man's feelings to-
wards his wife's sister should be different from
those
towards other women Cousins or other relatives, or
even perfect strangers, with whom marriages might
be contractt d, may dwell in the household, or render
their services around thu-sicit-bcd,-without exciting
jealousy or suspicion. These unions are not for-
bidden in America or in the erotestant States of
Europe, and yet we find that there is the most un•
rehtri.ined and happy intercourse between such par-
ties, and that the evils which enter into the disturbed
imaginations of its opponents, as being the inevitable
consequences of the Bill, have no real existence.
But. why should we repeat the arguments we have
already put forward? The voice of public opinion has.
been heard and well responded to within the walls of
Parliament. We have only to repeat our caution,