The Evening Star TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2656, 22 August 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 1871.

Another of those necessary reforms which have done so much to elevate Great Britain, socially, and morally, is foreshadowed in the South Australian Act, legalising marriage with the sister of a deceased wife. For many years—how many we cannot tell—the question has been raised in the Imperial Parliament, and time after time a Bill for the purpose has been passed in the Commons, and rejected by the House of Lords. But the importance of the matter has been growing year by year. Had there been no State Church, nor Lords spiritual at Home, whose meddling with social questions has been so often pernicious, in all probability the absurd and mischievous prohibition would have beon set aside long ago. But in spite of the clearest evidence that their interpretation of the only passage in the Bible on which they base their opinion, has been not seldom misquoted, and invariably misconstrued to support .their case, they still, with honorable exceptions, persist in opposing legalising marriage with the sister of a deceased wife on ecclesiastical grounds. The passage which it is maintained authorises the prohibi- ' tion, forms part of the Jewish code of laws, and has manifest reference to a condition of society in which polygamy prevailed. Its evident intention was to prevent these heart-burnings between blood relations, that would arise from jealousy between two living sisters married to one and the same husband ; and the prohibition is accompanied with the reason. It is found in Lev. ch. 18, v. 18—“ Neither shalt thou take a “ wife to her sister, to vex her” “in “ her lifetime.” We need not say that such a condition is out of place now: that the instinct of mankind has risen up in rebellion against the reading of the text by the Lords spiritual. and temporal; and in defiance of the prohibition, nature and reason have asserted their prerogative, and have led some fifty thousand or more families at Home, besides tens of thousands in the Colonies, to form such unions. We need not even allude to the absurd family reasons urged by the aristocracy of Great Britain against an alteration in the laws. So unfitted are they for application to society generally, that if they choose to bear such self-imposed burdens, they should at least relieve other people from them, and enact a law that the prohibition only applies to the families of certain rank j just as the Royal Marriage Act applied merely to the monarch’s family. But to turn a deaf ear to the remonstrance of perhaps ninety or one hundred thousand of the most moral and even religious families of an empire, involving to a certain extent the legal standing of one side as a wife, and the legal status of perhaps hundreds of thousands of children, and that on the most frivolous and untenable grounds, is an act of folly and injustice for which no excuse can avail. In a short article we cannot enter fully into the question; but very powerful motives impel a widower to such a union, if his first wife has left children in his charge Naturally both the father and the aunt are anxious for their welfare. Even a man’s own sister seldom regards her nephews and nieces with the same tender regard as his wife’s sister. Man’s business avocations will not permit of the perpetual watchfulness over his children that is required to give them a high moral training, and if he have right feelings in regard to them, he is very unwilling to consign them to the care of a stranger and a hireling. Even should 1m for their sakes marry again, in the absence of family ties with the second wife, they are apt to be treated as intruders should there be children by the second mar-, riage; and the wife not unfrequently looks upon them either as pupils or incumbrances. It is therefore common enough to witness noble instances of self-sacrifice on the part of sisters on both sides to the interests of widowed brothers and their children. As we have observed it will be seen that this mischievous prohibition virtually operates, if at all, to the discomforts of many of the best amongst mankind, and as amongst them are few unable to judge of the value of the reasons on which it is supported, their 1 refusal to be bound by it is a strong j ‘ condemnation of it. At length one Colony has been freed from this iniquit- j

oils burden, and, of necessity, all mus follow. If it become law in the Colonies, it cannot long be withheld at Home ; for so long as they are consti*' tuent portions of the Empire, the means of evading a partial prohibition at once present themselves, and a voyage to South Australia would settle the matter quite as effectually as a journey to Gretna Green used to do. We consider legalising such marriages to be a moral and social necessity, and feel glad that the Government are about to bring in a Bill for that purpose. We do not anticipate any opposition to a measure that commends itself so strongly to the common sense of mankind. If it were in any degree necessary, we should recommend petitions to be presented in its favor, for 1 the people of New Zealand are equally ! interested as other parts of the British 1 Empire. But we think the reasons for 1 passing it are so strong that, although there may be some effete politicians ' opposed to it, the large majority of both 1 Houses will vote in its favor.