PARLIAMENT.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2668, 5 September 1871, Page 2

PARLIAMENT.

August 30. DECEASED WlFfi’S SISTER MARRIAGE BILL. The Hon Mr Waterhouse, in moving the second reading of this bill in the Legislative Council said he should not have brought it before the} House but for action elsewhere, by which the question had b:eu complicated. He referred to the action taken by the Imperial Gove: ament in sanctioning an Act of a similar character. He could not but think that there should be but one law ip reference to marraige throughout the British dominions, and he would not have taken the ac‘4 >n he did had it not been that the Imperial legislature had sanctioned a mer* sure similar to that which was proposed in another colony. The effect oltliat would be to encourage the commital of illegalities which might be attended with the serious court* quences to the persons themselves, and to their families. According to the dec sion of the Privy Council of Lngland, marriages with a deceared wife’s eider were only valid in countries where the law prevailed, and where persons so married were bona fide resi'lents of the country. Marraiges with a deceased wife’s sister, provided the parties were bona fide residents of the country would therefore be valid throughout tie Briiish dominions, but if persons should go from this colony to that colony to ava-} themselves of the law, these marriages, beingjbetween persons who were not bona tide residents, would be altogether invalid. An important decision bad been given by tl p Privy Council in this matter. By parties avajlmg themselves of the law, very serious complications might arise and the very law in South Augtra’ja might prove a trap jp which persons rpight be so involved thas the legitimacy of the marraige jand the children might be called in question. It was u: ♦ doubtcdly extremely desirable that there should b ; one law on the object as far rs possible ; and in order that they might take steps towards uniformity, he was induced to bring in this bill. The hon. member con tinned by quoting instances of law, precedent and usage in connection with such mai* riages, and referred to the objections based on religious and social considerations urged against them, lie urged that arguments ad* duccd against them should be positive, not theoretical, and (hat it should be shown, if it could be shown, that they would be a wrong to society. He held that the legisl:.* tion on the subject was repugnant to the public septimcqtj not in apgordanpo with it, and he hoped ft would be’so altered that it would, no longer debar persons from entering into social arrangements which they deemed ppoper, and upon whielp a large proportion of their fefiovy-subjepts looked with apj provftl, Op a division the motion was carried by 11 against 10, and the bill was read a second time,