The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-03-15 00:00:00

TILE PROPOSED INIARRIAGE

(From ycsterda/'s London

We have au early-opportunity of reverting to the very im-
portant subject which •^.alled forth our reinarks-on Thursday,
occasioned by the announced motion of Lord Francis Eger-
ton, to legalize the marriage contract between .a man and his

Various c

s we shaVe

/Pre said, Oa Onilar nature have been made by others. AVe
truer, however,' that we shall be able so to explain this whale
subject, as to induce Lord Francis to desist from his attempt,
and to lay the matter at rest for ever. The English arc a
she great
.people ; also lie a Pure-One.-
~.4.• • ~ on

proper a protector," it is said, ." of the -deceased wife's
children rs their aunt?" Who, indeed, so proper? But
then, observe what you do by making, that aunt their step-
mother as well as aunt :. you overpoWer the feebler tie of
nature by an obligation of a closer character, if the new wife
have children of her Own": 'and the argument supposes her
to be a young woman; for if she be an old one, and the,
children consequently grown up, the whole case is an absurz
dity, and there is no occasion to marry at all. Does our

legendaryloretell us of no cruel uncle, who preferred
own children to his brother's? Religion and a sense of duty
Indy induce the stepmother-aunt to treat the two families
alike externally, but it is impossible that she should not fees
a stronger affection to her own.children than to those Of her
sister

No trials with respect to property are more frequent
in our courts of law than those whiCh result froth the pre!.
ferenee of children to nephews and nieces. You enfeeble
the protection of the aunt—perhaps convert it into aversion
—by giving her children of her own from the same father;
and thus making her, as we have said above, a stepmother-
aunt.
_ _

Besides, look at the mixed blood which you throw into the
children's veins. What is their relation to each other?
They are first cousins, we suppose; may they in that cha-
racter intermarry.? (You will come to that at last, after your
first incestuous step.) No; they are brothers and sisters
besides—only in the'half blood. What classical scholar does
not recollect the amplifications of tortured Orestes, in the
scenic Poet. praised by Longinus; after his unhappy mar.-
riage ?—( Vide Smith's Longinus.) •
• But look further at the unhappy position of the surviving
sister, after the death of the first wife, if you allow the hus,
band to oiler his addresses to her, in a legalized form. He
may be the object of her aversion personally. It is, indeed,
hardly probable that she should prefer him to every other
Man ; but she must either accept him, or be content to tear •
herself for ever from the orphan offspring of her deceased
sister. It is impossible 'she should -any - •longer 7 live in the
Fame-house with:him and them, after the declaration of his
passion, if she reject it ; she eanmit even see them often, or
in his piesence.. .'and even without this, you sever,
or render impossible, a pure intimacy, in order to gratify,
what we must call, an unholy passion. Is this protecting
the children? On the contrary, it it.exposing both aunt and
children,te the severest trials.; • ,
. But;there is another, sense also in which you are depriving
the ruplitin children of their. proper protector. It is racist
probable that thewidoWedhusbaod, being young and having
no notion of any legal cohabitation with their aunt, will look
out for some other uniOn... Shouldthe neiVsteinnother prove
unkind, to whom could theyill,freattritchildren fly-f 0 utter
their complaints and claim redress but to their aunt? You
have robbed them of that resource •by having made that aunt
their'stepmother. • • • • .
The aunt, in fact, can perform all the duties required of
her to the orphans of her-deceased sister without the 'forbid-
den union with their father. That union weakens every mo-
tive, both of nature and of duty. We hope to hear no more
of it. People of pure feelings are shocked at the proposition.
Your first step towards carrying it into effect must be-the re-
peal of that religion which has said, " They twain shall be
one flesh : wherefore they are no more twain, but onefiesh."
Mat. xix., 5. Look at the endearing appellation also which
has sprung from this eternal law of the Saviour of mankind.
What has the aunt been used to call the husband while her
sister lived ? • " My brother-in-law," or " my brother such
an one." A brother converted into an husband!
Two more observations we would make, of a theological
-character, though we generally avoid such. One is this :
We would ask those who found their feelings on their reli-
gion, and their religion on the Bible, what distinct authority
they have for abhorring any the most terrible form of incest
which is not also applicable to this ? General feelings and
popular notions of apparent expediency are deceitful things,
—nay,
even our own sink with the scale of popular morality,
—though we obey them, and must do so. And the only ex-
press law promulgated by Divine authority (Leviticus xviii.)
includes this connexion in the same terms, and under the
same denunciation, as those which most shock our nature.
That law draws a distinct line,' and we have no other guide.
Is it a safe thing to remove such a land-mark ?
Next, the law so stated is not mere Jewish law. If so, its
authority doubtless would be slight. It would furnish at
most but an analogy. But the context shows that divine
wrath rested on those who did such things before the promul-
gation, as it will do after the revocation, of that the first
written law. After recounting these forbidden unions, in
connection with 'one or two other crimes of a still deeper die,
- it adds, not a command to Israel only, but a terrible
warning to all people Defile not ye yourselves in any
" of these things : !or in all these the nations are defiled
" which. I cast out before you ; and the land is defiled:
therefore do I visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the
" land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants."

We In 4 have spoken severely ; but it is time to speak so
when a respectable Christian legislator proposes to legalize
what . Holy Writ has laid down among the crying iniqui-
ties of the Canaanites when their iniquity was full.