The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-03-30
SPIRIT OF TIE PRESS.
rp1roR1A1 OPINIONS OF THE LEADING JOURNALS
UPON CURRENT roPICs-CoMPILED EVERY
DAY FOR THE EVENING TELEGRAPH.
MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED wIFE'S
SISTER.
From the ". Y. Sun.

From the ". Y. Sun.
Probably dozen or more attempts have
been made in England within the last half
century to legalize marriage with deceased
wife's sister, and invariably with the same
result The measure usually prevails in the
House of Commons, but in the House of
Lords, where the influence of the Bench of
Bishops is exerted against it, and the CON
servative element is in the ascendancy 1t IS
decisively defeated. The subject has been
once more before the British pubhc, and a
bill legalizing such marriages recently passed
the lower house of Parliament, only to be de-
feated in the upper house. This result was
foreshadowed by the action of meeting in
the conservative interest, in which a number
of lords temporal and spiritual participated,
recently held in London. The chairman,
Earl Percy, denounced the measure as con-
trary to Holy Scripture, contrary to the rule
of the Church in all ages, and contrary
to common sense and all right
feeling; and he believed that if it should be-
come law it would be productive of the
worst effects both socially and morally.
Another lord showed that the present law
against such marriages had been the law of
England for thousand years. and the
Bishop of Winchester, familiarly known in
England as ''Soapy Samuel declared that
if there was no law of affinity to restrain a
man from marrying his wifes sister, the Law
of consanguinity did not prevent him from
marrying his own daughter, and he pro-
nounced it to be a high crime and misde-
meanor for any one even to mention in terms
of advocacy such shameful act. He adjured
the English people to reject the proposal as
one tainted with impurity, and which would
sap the foundations of morality and public
decency
In the United States, where a distinction
has been made between marriages of kindred
md of Hinifx
seems extravagant, if not absolutely ludi-
crous. No law here prevents a man from
marrying his deceased wifes sister, and such
marriages do in fact take place, though by
no means frequently. But the terrible re-
suits anticipated by the English alarmists
have not followed. The purity of domestic
life has in no appreciable degree been sui
lied, and it is within the experience of almost
any one that the infant children of deceased
wife have been cared for, as they perhaps
could not otherwise have been, by her sister
succeeding as their mother. Not only
has the tone of society not been Lowered
by the celebration of such marriages, but
there is reason to believe that domestic
happiness would be promoted if they could
oftener occur. Widowers, with or without
families of young children, usually, however,
incline to matrimonial alliances in a different
direction from their first venture. Some
general law of change perhaps influences
them, or they are opposed, for reasons similar
to those adduced by conservative Englishmen,
to marrying their sisters-in-law. But the
significant facts are that in q country which
legalizes marriages with deceased wlfe's
sister they are not frequent. the basis OF
social life has not been unsettled, and public
morals are as pure and public decency as
strictly enforced as in England. The subject
is one which may we'll be left to individual
tastes and temperaments. If the law should
ever be changed in England, natural rule
of selection which is superior to Parliamen
tary enactments will in all probability pre-
vent there, as it has in America, the frequent
occurrence of marriages which so shock the
feelings of hereditary British legislators.