The Douglas independent. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 187?-1885, 1883-07-14
A Deceased Wife's Sister.


| lords of the famous bill legalizing mar
riage with deceased wife's sister marks
| the end of the most remarkable parlia-
mentary struggle on record. The bill
| has merely passed the house of lords on
second reading. but that process involves
the adoption of the principles involved
| In the measure, and the further progress
of the bill is for the purpose of perfect
| ing it. Although the majority is only
| seven, "It will serve," as Mercutio re-
marked, and there is very slight chance
of the majority being reversed when it
comes up on third reading.
| The origin of the legislation which
gave rise to the agitation which is now
on the point of successful termination
was curious. Before the act of 1886,
marriages in England with q deceased
wife's sister were not void, but only
voidabie; voidable. that is, by the sem
nounced during the lifetime of the par
| illegitimacy on the children. Before
this date marriages of the kind were un-
common, but in that year it seems to
was occasioned by leaving them on this
| X. n o.
at the age of thirty might marry his de-
ceased wife's sister, and the children of
that marriage might not know for forty
years or more-not, in fact, till the death
OF one of their parents-whether they
were legitimate or not. This is the rea-
son given in the preamble of the act, and
| this was the argument relied upon by the
| promoters of the measure in parliament.
It was not, however, denied that there
was an alternative method of overcoming
the difficulty.
The object of the act was to do away
with the uncertainty attaching to such
marriages. But this might have been as
serted by declaring them absolutely
valid, as well as by declaring them alb
| solutely void; and as the former course
was not to be thought of, in consequence
of the strong religious feeling which pre-
vailed in the country, the legislature was
compelled to fall back upon the latter, if
an acknowledged and crying evil was to
be remedied at all.
The immediate occasion of the legisla-
tion of 1926 was the question raised as
to the legitimacy of the late Duke of
Beaufort, who was q son of one of these
voidable marriages. An act was intro
3uced by Lord Lyndhurst into the
House of Lords that year to remove all
doubt as to his position, and the clause
was inserted in IL making marriages
hitherto effected legal, but all after mar
| riages illegal. The new House of Com
| mons protected and refused to pass the
| bill, but very late in the session It was
| pushed through. It was accepted by the
| House of Commons on the plea that it
/ e,-I L. H. %
| which affected the heirship to title and
great estates; and that the whole ques-
ton of the law of marriages of affinity
| should be reopened and reconaldered.
The pledge thus given was not kept, and
| the law which makes these marriages
illegal still remains on the statute
| book.
AS early as 1842 agitation against
'Lord Lyndhurst's act" had attained to
very respectable proportions, for, on the
10th of March of that year the House of
Commons refused leave to Lord Francis
Edgerton to introduce bill to legalize
the marriages of widowers with their
sisters-in-law. But five years later
May Is, 1847-Mr. Stuart Wortley OBJ
tanned commission to inquire into the
operation of the existing law, which, it
may be added, came before the public
still more conspicuously in November,
when the Chadwick case was heard in
the court of the queens bench. John
Chakwick's wife. Hannah Fisher, dying,
he married her sister, Ann, whom he
deserted to marry one Eliza Bostock. He
was thereupon indicted for bigamy, but
pleaded that his second marriage was
null, and his third consequently nom
bigamous. This plea was supported by
the courts, and consequently the rascal
got off.
The agitation was kept up actively,
and by the 9th of March, 1850, the COM
mons had become convinced of the
necessity of some reform, and passed
the bill to second reading by 1872 to
1870. In his speech on that occasion Mr..
Beresford-Hope declared that if the
measure was passed it would be neces-
sary for the legislature to recognize old
marriages contracted in violation of the
law, and then went on to give some curl
GUS statistics to disprove the common as
sertion that such marriages were only
common among the humber classes.
Though the bill passed the commons, it
was opposed so strenuously in the house
of lords that the earl of st. Germans
had to withdraw it July 25th, and on the
25th of February, 1851, when it was first
| brought to a vote in the house of lords,
only sixteen votes were recorded in its
favor, while fifty were cast against it.
| The sixteen affirmative votes represented
the full strength of the party, advocating
/ 50 xrb1ol, L.. loo,s -