MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE’S SISTER.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4151, 10 July 1874, Page 3

MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE’S SISTER.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir—The proposed change in the present marriage law is of so grave a character that I ask leave to give my reasons for dissenting from it. The present law forbids, and the English law has always forbidden, such marriages ; both laws resting iqjon the moral law of God, and not, as some have said, upon any purely Jewish law. The Jewish nation were ruled by a threefold law—the ceremonial, civil, moral. The ceremonial law, which related to their feasts, as to that of the Passover, &c., has passed away. The civil law, which related to their peculiar land-tenure, &c., has also passed away. But the moral law still remains. It was in force long before Abraham. It is always binding upon all men everywhere. I hold then that it is forbidden by this moral law of God that a man should marry his deceased wife’s sister. Those who hold that this is not so forbidden, argue that Leviticus, xviii. chap. 18th verse, permits such marriages. I believe, however, that this verse only forbids polygamy, ■which is contrary to the moral law of God. The translators of the English Bible, men eminent in their knowledge of Hebrew, thought, as is evident from the margin, that the verse might be so translated. It is quite certain that the rest of the chapter, which is part of God’s moral law, for the Canaanites, herein condemned for transgressing its commands, knew nothing of any Jewish law, forbids all marriages of relationship by blood, or by affinity. The tenor then of the whole chapter, this 15th verse excepted, absolutely forbidding such marriages, it seems to me to be altogether illogical to say that they are permitted by this one verse, of which, further, the interpretation is very doubtful. The tenor of the rest of the chapter fixes the true interpretation to some extent, as the 18th verse cannot njake that lawful which is certainly unlawful according to the interpretation of the rest of the chapter, about which there is no dispute.

There are other weighty reasons against it. A husband can now show all kindness to his wife’s sister. She can live with him, and take charge of his children, the wife being alive or dead, without a shadow of reproach. He would, if such change be made, hesitate to offer such hospitality, and a woman of right feeling would hesitate to accept it. A wife’s sister holds of necessity a very different position in the house to that which would be held by any other lady, as say a governess. The very relationship, and the necessary familiarity flowing from it, now only adding to the happiness of all, would at once cause disquiet, both in the house and abroad.

It ha 3 always been held as a political axiom that law should follow demand. There was no demand for this change, in England or elsewhere, until an agitation was begun by those who had good reason to desire a change. The movement originally came, confessedly, from those who, having broken the law as it stood, sought, as lawbreakers, to be relieved from the consequences of their own lawlessness.

The view I advocate was very forcibly urged in the House of Lords, March 13, 1873, by the Lord High Chancellor of England.—l am, &c. A, Stock. Wellington, July 8.