THE Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. MONDAY, 15th JULY, 1895.

Southland Times, Issue 13264, 15 July 1895, Page 2

THE Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. MONDAY, 15th JULY, 1895.

Those who have any acquaintance with the basis of the English law of marriage must have suffered a severe shock on learning on Friday that a bill legalising nnion with the brother of a deceased husband had gone through committee, had been read a third time, and had been passed in the House of Representatives," by a majority’of 43 to 10, The first thing that strikes us is the indecent haste with which this measure, overturning in an important particular the marriage law of the colony, has been hustled through the House. We have as yet no full account of the debate, but from the time oicupied it could not have been serious or exhaustive, and we shall not be surprised to hear that it excited less interest than the political personal explanation that might have been offered by a member. When war was declared by France against Germany, the French Minister declared that his country was going to battle “ with a light heart ” ; and we know the bitter commentary that was written on this boast at Sedan. It is in a similar spirit of ignorant and presumptuous levity that our legislatorhave entered upon a crusade against the venerable marriage law of England and of Europe. In a night, or rather in a portion of a night, they have passed a resolution to overthrow in an essmtial point one of our grfeat social institutions —we have no doubt in deplorable misconception of the authority on which it rests. We are not speaking just now of the authority of the churches, and take no account of Popp, of Bishops or of Presbyters. The law of marriage is based on a higher sanction, and is Scriptural before being ecclesiastical. We are inclined to wonder how many members of the House of Representative! are aware t v at the marriage on which it'haa put its imprimatur is forbidden in expreis ternis in the XVIII chapter of the Biok of Leviticus, a chapter containing the only divine law of marriage of which we are in possession, and that is the ground upon which the lawfulness of all marriages is or ought to be debated in every Christian country. The prohibition is in the 16th verso, and is in these words, “Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother’s wife: it is thy brother’s nakedness.” And it i« acknowledged that throughout the chapter in question “wife’ is to be assumed as including ‘ widow.” At the introduction into the House of the bill we are discussing it was contended that the permission of marriage with a deceased wife’s sister necessitated logically the permission of marriage with a deceased husband’s brother. But no reasoning could be more fallacious. T;ie former marrhge is nowhere forbidden in Leviticus ; on the contrary, an implied warrant for it is to be found in the 18th verse of the chapter from which we have quoted; whereas,as we have already said, the latter marriage is in express terms condemned. Moreover, the physiological relation ot a man to the sister of his wife is scientifically recognis d as differing essentially from the physiological relation of a woman to her husband’s brother ; this difference throwing a flood of light on the permission of the one marriage and the absolute prohibition of the other. So far therefore from the sanction of marriage with a deceased wife’s sister requiring logic illy the sanction of marriage with a deceased husband’s brother, regard for the guiding statute in the matter demands that the one should be allowed and the other forbidden. It should be unnecessary to point out that if we are at liberty to fly in the face of the divine ordinance in the case in question, there is not one of the prohibitions regulating marriage that may not in the same way be disr garded; and in a matter of this supreme importance we should then be left to merely human caprice. That we should be so left we are sure is not the desire of the enormous majority of the people of this colony. One of the pleas on which the change now attempted rests is of the flimsiest description, and is one which any of those who hold the determination of our social condition in their hands ought to be ashamed to urge. Many letters, forsooth, have been received from women who desire ti contract the marriage in ques ion! But when was it ever heard that the desire to transgress a divine appointment should be accepted as a reason for giving civil sanction to the transgression ? It is a far higher law than human inclination that is to determine what, for the good of humanity, are to be the prohibited degrees of consanguinity and affinity. The weak-

nesa and childishness of suffering any number of individual d mmds to have influence in altering a uoml institution like marriage cannot be too strongly reprehended. That such pleas ’should have been listened to is another proof, if any had been wanting, of the hopeless incompetence of a popular b idy, to a great extent shallow, uneducated and untrained to reasoning, to determine some of the social problems about which nevertheless they presume to legislate. . . . Happ’ly for the (ointry and for the cause of social ordir and well* being,'tbe decision of tin House o' Representatives is not finals The interval that has elap e 1 between the measure in question'd having been sprung upon the House and i g having been hurried through all the. stages has been too short to permit of an expression .

of public opinion ; bat the tribunal of the Upper House has yet to be faced. We.cannot for a moment doubt that the Legislative Council will give short shrift to this wretched, uncalled for, and illconsidered bill. Moreover, we are satisfied that in throwing it out they will have the intelligence, the right leeling, and the religious thought of the country at their back. But even if, unfortunately, this expectation should ba disappointed, it may be reckoned upon as a certainty that the Governor of the Colonyw.li never give his assent to a measure so revolutionary as that in question without reference to the authorities at Home, whose condemnation of it may be confidently anticipated. In the meantime all those interested in maintaining the present marriage law in its integrity should be active in influencing the Council to reject the bill.