The Sun.
London, England, 1842-03-11 00:00:00

marriages. That is for us no argument at all, and the
more remote the origin of a practice which at present
seems destitute of any just foundation, the more is there
reason to believe that it is erroneous and unjust ; be-
cause the further back we trace mankind, the more igno-
rant, superstitious, and barbarous we find them. In
other cases, the authority of the Roman Church and
the Greek Church are openly derided by the Hon.
Baronet and his friends, and it is for them almost a suf-
ficient reason to repudiate an opinion or a practice, that
it is sanctioned by the Pope or the Greek Patriarch.
But whenever a doctrine of any Church, or any book,
subserves the prejudices or the power of a party, that
doctrine is immediately endowed with unbounded au-
thority : whenever it militates against those prejudices,
or is inimical to that power, it is openly flouted, or cast
aside with silent contempt.
Another argument which has been brought against
Lord F. EGERTON'S proposition is, that it is contrary to
the statute of 25th of Henry VIII., cap. 22, which itself,
however, has no higher authority than the Canon Law
of the Roman and Greek Churches. It recites that law,
and then forbids, amongst other things, a brother
marry a brother's wife, or a man to marry his wife's sister.
Now, it is singular enough, that this law was passed, we
have always understood, mainly to gratify the lust of
that king. At that period he had become tired, says the
historian " of the person of the Queen," who had beetchis
brother's wife, and in order to promote his object of getting
rid of CATHERINE, he and his subservient Parliament,
passed a law, which, in the name of morality and virtue,
should tend to set him free from his unpleasant restraints,
and impose for his lust a series of unnecessary restraints
on all the people in future time; But the law, as we have
said, rests altogether on his will and on the authority of
the Church, which, when not expressly based on Scrip-
ture, is to be rejected the more ancient is its source.

The New Testament establishes no such prohibition as
that which is on the Statute-book. The Old Testament
expressly authorises, in certain circumstances, a man to
raise up seed to his brother, and warrants, rather than
otherwise, the matrimonial connection now in dispute.
But in all antiquity the situation and posi-
tion of women were not such as to recom-
mend the precepts borrowed from that time,
on the rights concerning them then established worthy
of our blind acceptance. We have neither space nor
time to trace their condition, whether in ancient Judea,
in ancient Greece, or in ancient Rome, through the va-
rious gradations of slavery, concubinage, and pur-
chase, in order to show that the Canon law, derived
partly from the Roman law and partly from the customs
of the barbarians who overturned the Roman empire.
ought not, except it be fully confirmed by our own reason
and experience, to be of any authority whatever. The
position of women in society has been continually im-
proved as civilization advanced ; and it is for us to
improve it still more by doing away with what yet
remains in it of their ancient condition of slavery, not to
regulate it by the remains of a code which had its origin
in a very rude and barbarous state of society.
We can see nothing contrary to the order of nature
in that proceeding to which Lord F. EGERTON seeks to
give the sanction of law. We only say, ant we believe,
he says no more than that such marriages ought not to be
prohibited. Men may, on that point, be left to their
own discretion. The abolition of the prohibition is
asked for by influential individuals who are aggrieved by
the restriction, and by some very powerful classes. To
tell us that it comes within the prohibited degrees—
those degrees having been settled, as Sir R. INGLIS says
more than fifteen centuries ago, about the time the Lom-
bards were drinking blood out of skulls, and when murder,
to obtain a throne, was a common occurrence, is tanta-
mount to telling us that we ought to navigate the ocean
like our remote ancestors, in wicker boats, covered with
hides. If no better reasons can be assigned for resisting
Lord FRANCIS EGERTON'S motion than this deference
to an unworthy authority, we hope that the House of
Commons will take up the question in that serious mood
which it deserves, and at once make the Marriage law,
from being vague, uncertain, and superstitious, definite,
precise, and reasonable. Other topics, we are aware,
more immediately interest the public than this; at the
same time this is as important a subject for regulation as
can well demand the attention of the legislature.

The regular mails from India have now arrived, but we
regret to announce that a careful examination of them,
and a comparison of four several private accounts from
Bombay, all dated the Ist of February, has but served
to confirm the terrible news from Affghanistan, published
in The Sun of yesterday. The murders of Sir ALEXAN-
DER BURNES and Sir WILLIAM MACNAGIITEN the
compulsory return of Major M'LAREN to Candahar, after
a vain attempt to relieve the camp of Cabool—the inabi-
lity of Major-General Sir ROBERT SALE to form a junc-
tion before March or April with the late General Ea-
PHINSTONE'S army, reported to be in a perishing condi-
tion in the month of December, are official facts which
justify an apprehension of the dreadful results currently
reported and believed in Bombay at the departure
of the Indian mail. Some exaggeration there un-
doubtedly is in the report of the total massacre of
from five to six thousand British troops. No doubt
that if compelled to fight their way from the camp at
Cabool to Jellalabad; a distance of ninety miles, throu;;li
an almost impassable country, and surrounded by ene-
mies, the loss of our troops would be very great ;
but it is rational to suppose that two-thirds would es-
cape. Not that we should not regard suck a result as a
very awful calamity, and one calculated to give a sad
blow to, our dominion in India. The desperate condition
of the Camp at Cabool was known to Sir IL SALE, and
were the troops to evacuate it he might be expected to
push on a light force a distance of from thirty to forty
miles to meet them, and cover their retreat. Their
great difficulty would be in getting through the Khoord
Cabool Pass, where 500 men could prevent the passage
of an army of 50,000. A re-inforcement of 8,000 men
were on their march to Jellalabad to reinforce SALE'S
brigade ; 10,000 men, under General NOTT, were at
Candahar, so that with the first melting of the snows a
British force would be at hand to revenge the murder
of our Ambassador by laying the city of Cabool in ashes,
and passing the plough over its very foundations.
But we doubt whether we should gain anything
by this. The Affghans are a wild, fierce, warlike race,
strangers to fear, and indifferent to danger. With than
revenge is a virtue, and to die fighting against an enemy
the most glorious death. We may devastate the coun-
try with fire and sword, but the inhabitants, who subsist
by their flocks, will betake themselves to their mountain
fastnesses to descend upon our armies with the eagle swoop
of destruction when lost in unknown defiles, and perish-
ing for want of food. The experience of the last cam-
paign in Affghanistan ought to teach us that we have
not here the effeminate races of Hindostan to cope with.
The Affghan mode of warfare was then nearly as fatal
to the army of Lord KEANE as was that of Russia to the
grand army of NAPOLEON in 1812. So late as Octoberlast
the Belochees burned and destroyed Gundava, Dadur,
and the plains of Cutchee. To revenge these outrages
General NOTT, with 4,000 troops and a heavy train of
artillery, marched a distance of 300 miles upon Khelat,
their capital. And what did he find when he arrived ?
A town without a single inhabitant ! In the Oc-
tober following this Gallant Officer, at the head
of 200 men resolved to attack the Affghan insurgents in
the valley of Tereen. To move his artillery over the
heights, and through the deep ravines that inclosed the
valley cost him a month's incessant toil, and when he
had reached there there was not an Affghan to be seen !
They had all fled with their flocks to the mountains,
only appearing when thero was a gun to be seized,
or a few stragglers from the camp to be picked
off by their marksmen from behind rocks. Their mode
of warfare is to fly before the enemy, and destroy every
thing behind them. In this way they can destroy any
army without fighting, which is not provided with the
means of supplying itself with provisions, provender,
and sometimes even water—for every well is filled.
Notwithstanding the general indignation in India on
account of the murder of Sir WILLIAM MACNAGHTEN,
who bore the sacred character of an Envoy, a respectable
and influential portion of the Anglo-Indian Press, is
strongly opposed to a war with the Affghans. The
Bombay Times, for example, contends that all our mis-
fortunes arose from the unfortunate and criminal
blunder of setting up a cruel and detested fool, the SHAH
SOOJAH in the room of the popular King Dos MOHAM-
MED, who offered us his friendship, if we would only prevail
on RUNJEET SINGH to restore him Peshawur, the kcv
of his demininions on the side of the • Indus. " The
Affghan's," says that Journal, are defending themselves
against the invaderS of their country and enemies of
their faith, who desire to impose a Sovereign on them
whom they despise and detest ; and to subject them
to burdens which they never brooked to bear at the hands
of their most populous Princes. The cause of Affghan
vengeance is the same in which the Spaniards fought
for eight centuries against the Moors ; which called
forth the heroism of Saragossa against the French ,
which foiled the First and Third Edwards in their at-
tempts on Scotland ; which made the defence of
Antwerp against the Spaniards the admiration of
Europe ; and which for centuries made the nervous arm
and mountain hold of the Swiss peasant- too strong for
the serried legions of France and Austria !" Much
of this is beside the real question at issue, which
is, can we retain India, and not take signal
Vengeance on the Affghans ? If the murderer-,
UKHTAR KHAN, escape, shall' we not have parodies of his
crime at half the native Courts of India, and first of all
at that of Burmah, should we again think of sending
one there ?

It is not a little singular hat in the nineteenth con-
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