MONDAY, AUGUST 5, 1872.

Evening Star, Issue 2952, 5 August 1872, Page 2

MONDAY, AUGUST 5, 1872.

During the term of office of the present Ministry, a greater number of really useful measures have been introduced and passed than in any similar period of Colonial history. Many persons may differ from us in an estimate of the advantages which the legislation of the last three years has conferred upon the country \ hut the best answer to objectors is that they realise the purposes for which they were passed, and tend to the increase of the prosperity and happiness of the population. We need not enumerate all the Acts that have been passed tending to this result. It is only necessary to allude to the extension of the Post Office Savings Bank system, the Land Transfer Act, the Life Assurance system, and other plans now working successfully. Wo might j add the Armed Constabulary and De- | fence plans, and in our opinion the Immigration and Public Works Act. We know there are those who differ from us on some of these points. We have no cpuirrel with them on that account, and should fancy that few unbiassed by party feeling or personal interest could be found to coincide with their condemnation of them. There may have been mistakes in the details of their execution. No Ministry ever yet held office to whose acts some blame might not bo attached : but when different members of it are blamed for different faults, and those, not faults of principle hut mere personal peculiarities or accidents, it may be fairly assumed that there is not, after all, much amiss. Still there are men who consider it a serious charge against Mr Fox that he is an enthusiastic teetotaller ; as if it were a disgrace instead of an honor to advocate abstinence from what has been the ruin of tens of thousands of men of genius, and lias brought misery and poverty into families, where, if the heads had acted as he has done, plenty and happiness would have been obtained. Even an honorable member had the bad taste to blame him in this respect in the House. The present session seems likely to be equally prolific of useful legislation with those that have preceded it j hut the most important of the Bills yet introduced into the House is one to legalise marriage with the sister of a deceased wife. The necessity for such a measure being passed in England has been long apparent; but, however important to England, it is far more necessary in the Colonies, lens of thousands of families are interested at Home in it, and session after session a Bill legalising such marriages has passed the Commons, but has been invariably rejected by the Lords. The arguments'in favor of such marriages are, in our opinion, incontrovertible. They tend to unity in families, and to the best moral and religious training that can be secured for children who have had the misfortune to lose a mother. No stranger can be found to supply her place so well as a sister of the deceased ; no one will be regarded with equal confidence by the father; no one will he obeyed with equal affection by the children ; no one will feel so deep an interest in their welfare as one who shared with the bereaved husband in love for her who has left behind her such deep responsibilities. We arc aware that imaginary difficulties of a sentimental kind have been raised. We have been gravely told by noble Lords that to render such marriages legal would be to create jealousy of sister towards sister, and thus to prevent that freedom of family intercourse that now takes place; as if with the wife in full health and, strength, her sister would enter upon a courtship that could never he successful until she died. Heaven knows human nature is had enough, but the days of Lucretia Borgia are past \ or if morality he at so low au ebb amongst the aristocracy, that is no reason why other classes should be saddled with disabilities because of the frailties to which they 1 affirm themselves liable, But the far

more difficult question to deal with is the ecclesiastical one. Amongst our traditional notions on the subject is the idea that such marriages are forbidden in the Scriptures. Some of the English Bishops say so ; many in the English Church think so ; we believe our Homan Catholic fellowcitizens hold it to be so. Of course, if there are those who allow themselves to bo placed in ecclesiastical bondage nobody has a right to find fault; let them obey their churches if their consciences cannot otherwise rest. But • wc cannot too strongly condemn such persons when they assume to lay a burden upon others, who have quite as much right to an opinion on ecclesiastical matters as they. These churches of course assume to have the authority of the Scriptures to guide them. This is their strength. Take that away, and who will obey ? We affirm that no such authority is contained in the Scripture, and therefore they have no right whatever to interfere. There is but one text bearing upon the subject, and, as many of our readers may not be familiar with the controversy, we may inform them that it is the 18th verse of the 18th chapter of Leviticus, ’ in which it is expressly stated “Neither shall thou take a wife to her sister, to 1 vex her . . . beside the other in

her life, time.” The omitted words are not 'important. It will be observed that this law is conditional, and that the condition is only applicable to a state of society in which plurality of wives Avas allowed. It does not forbid marriage with the sister of a deceased wife, but Avith the sister of a living one, for it expressly says “ in her life time.” It is plain that without or with reasons that no longer exist, churches and legislators have chosen to misread this text, and have laid upon society burdens that the Creator has not commanded. Accordingly outraged nature has rebelled, and the law has been set at defiance, for it has never been obeyed. Society has always recognised such marriages. We are glad to say that the dispatch of Earl Kimberly, under date 10th April, 1872, distinctly states that “ such marriages would f be held valid in England, provided the parties Avere domiciled in the Colony at the time of their marriage and it therefore only remains that this Colony, like South Australia, should legalise unions of that description. The Bill that has passed its second reading is short and comprer hensive, and unraistakcable. It legalises marriages “ Avliicb have been heretofore or which shall be hereafter solemnized within the Colony of Ncav Zealand between any person and bis deceased wife’s sister,” and thus, if it become law, uneasiness will be removed from the minds of thousands with regard to the legal status of their children. We are sorry the House did not pass it unanimously, and regret still more to sec in the division list opposed to it, men whom wc believed to bo free from the trammels of traditional superstition.