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affinity prohibited in the 18th chapter of Leviticus shall be dissolved by the authority of the bishop; first wife, shall have married her sister; for this but especially if any one, after the death of his degree, by the common consent and judgment of all learned men, is held to be prohibited in Leviticus."

And, that there might be no mistake, he would read the Latin words of the latter part of the canon:

upon

hurst's Act ought to be retained. But it was not Lord Lyndhurst's Act that the House was now dealing with. What was asked from the Legislature was, that it should repeal a law which had been the law of Christendom from time immemorial, and which had received the sanction of every authority, ecclesiastical and civil, from the beginning of Christian history up to the present time. Lord Lyndhurst's Act "Maximè verò, si quis, priore uxore demortuâ, did not prohibit these marriages-all that ejus sororem uxorem duxerit: hic enim gradus, Lord Lyndhurst's Act did, was to make that communi omnium doctorum virorum consensu et law self-executing which formerly could judicio, putatur in Levitico prohiberi." only be executed through the sentence of The canon then went on to forbid in genea court, and it ought not to be represented ral terms marriages within any of the deas though the question were merely the repeal of Lord Lyndhurst's Act. It was a grees set forth in the table published by grave social question; and from its gravity fore, would see that it was now called on Archbishop Parker. The House, thereand importance ought not to be represented to reverse a judgment as solemn and deas if they were dealing with a law of yes- liberate, so far as ecclesiastical authority terday. He begged the House to follow was concerned, as could well be pronounced up the foundation of this law to its proper source-to investigate its origin and prin- of Bishop Gibson on this table of prohibited such a subject as this. The comment ciple and not to treat it according to the superficial notion that had been put for-degrees was the more valuable, inasmuch ward in these debates-as if Lord Lynd- authorities which had been so much relied as it dealt with the question of the Jewish hurst's Act, or even the verbal criticism of on in the discussions on this question. It one particular verse in Scripture were its was as follows:foundation. The true origin of the law was to be found in the solemn determination of all Christendom, based on a general, comprehensive, and liberal interpretation of riages within the degrees there mentioned; which, though not forbidden in terms, are forbidden by Scripture. The verbal and textual criti- parity of degree, and the plain reason of the precisms had been introduced into the dis- cept. And this difference as to the interpretation cussion, and were relied on not by the up- of the Levitical prohibition, in point of extent, holders, but by the opponents of the present of whom-namely, the Talmudists—confined it to was remarkable among the Jewish doctors, some law. But he would bring the authors of the letter of the law; others-namely, the Koraites the present ecclesiastical law of this coun--extended it to all marriages of the same degree try to speak for themselves, and the House with those that are prohibited by name. should hear from them on what principle latter opinion, as most agreeable to Scripture and this law was founded, and what meaning as appears from the apostolical canons, which forreason, was followed by the primitive Christians, they attached to those parts of Scripture bid the marrying of two sisters, and of a brother's which bore upon the question. As it or sister's daughter." happened, this particular case which the House was now discussing was the very one case which, for the sake of recording to all times that it had not been overlooked by them, but that they had given to it

their most deliberate consideration, Arch

bishop Parker and the Convocation of 1571 (which framed the Thirty-nine Articles and gave its sanction to the table of prohibited degrees) had placed in the front of their canon, in order to show that it was not by accident, but by a direct decision, that they adopted that part of the table. The English translation of the canon was in these words :

"All marriages which have anywhere been contracted within the degrees of consanguinity or

"This is a prohibition not only of the marriages mentioned within Leviticus xviii., but also of mar

Which

The traditions of the Talmudists, he might
remark, were not particularly recommend-
ed either to our belief or affection by the
highest authority to which Christians
looked up. The principle on which this
in the Reformatio Legum, thus-
canon proceeded was very well set forth

"In these chapters, however, of Leviticus this is carefully to be observed, that they do not by any means contain an explicit mention by name. of all the persons with whom union is unlawful. For the Holy Spirit has there brought forward distinctly and expressly those persons from which the like intervals and relative differences of the other degrees may with ease be discovered and inferred. As, for example, a son being forbidden to marry his mother, it is a just consequence that a daughter also cannot be her father's wife. And if

a man may not marry his father's brother's wife, it follows equally that a marriage with a mother's brother's wife cannot be allowed."

The following two rules were then added"1. That we are always to understand the same places which are assigned to men to be equally attributable to women; the degrees of proportion and propinquity being the same. 2. That the man and his wife are to be regarded as having between them one and the same flesh; so that whatever may be the degree of consanguinity in which one person stands related to another, he will be related to his wife in the same degree of affinity, which rule is also of the same force and upon the same principle in the converse

case."

it being expressed that the nephew shall not marry his uncle's wife, it is implied that the niece shall not be married to her aunt's husband."" The hon. and learned Member for Bath (Mr. Phinn) had made great use of the documents which the industrious agitators on this question had circulated that morning among the Members of the House. In one of these the correctness of a quotation made from Philo-Judæus by the hon. and learned Member for Enniskillen in the former debate had been impugned; and though he had no intention to discuss a question of Greek in that House, he must say that the These two rules were plainly founded on translation given of the passage in that the principle of the chapter in Leviticus; document was certainly not one in the corwhich, as it was directed generally against rectness of which he was disposed to acall marriages with near of kin, must, when quiesce. These documents, however, gave it mentioned an extreme limit, be held to a very striking illustration of the manner include all degrees within that limit. This in which authorities were got up by those principle had been sanctioned and adopted who managed the agitation on this quesby the whole Christian world from the tion. In the former debate it was stated earliest ages; whatever else might be that Bishop Jewell had given a very strong thought of it, it was at least a general opinion against these marriages. This was principle, an intelligible principle, consist- the language which he held on the subject, ent with itself and with common sense; in a private letter, dated 1561and it was not competent for the supporters of this measure now to call upon Parliament to legislate in defiance of it

on

any such loose and unsatisfactory ground as the supposition that they the supporters of the Bill-so clearly understood the meaning of that 18th verse in the 18th chapter of Leviticus as to be able to say that it not only did not mean a prohibition, but actually conveyed a sanction of these marriages. The hon. Baronet the Member for the Oxford University had completely answered the attempt which had been made to weaken the authority of Archbishop Cranmer, by pointing out that the marriage with a brother's widow, which Henry VIII. was anxious to dissolve, was actually prohibited in Leviti

cus.

But the House must not forget that Archbishop Cranmer's sincerity in this matter had been tried, for he afterwards refused to sanction a man's marriage with his wife's niece, even though it was pressed upon him by Lord Cromwell in the height of his power. The fact was thus narrated in Gibson's Codex

"This was the very point in which, presently after the making of the Act-25 Henry VIII. -Cromwell desired a dispensation for one Massey, who was contracted to his sister's daughter of his late wife; but the Archbishop (Cranmer) denied it as contrary to the law of God; and gave for reason, That as several persons are prohibited which are not expressed or understood by like prohibition in equal degree, so, in this case,

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"Albeit I be not forbidden by plain words to marry my wife's sister, yet am I forbidden to do so by other words which by exposition are plain enough. For when God commands me I shall not marry my brother's wife, it follows directly by the same that He also forbids me to marry my wife's sister. For between one man and two sisters, and one woman and two brothers is like analogy or proportion.”

It was now sought, however, to show that Bishop Jewell had altered his opinion on this subject, and a very sudden alteration it must have been, certainly; for, in 1563, he was represented as having written thus to Archbishop Parker—

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land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled; that the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you. Evidently, therefore, these were no mere Mo

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was speaking in language of disgust and indignation at the temporising conduct of the secular authorities in reference to this matter. In the former debate the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General was represented as having said-saic laws; they were laws of general though he did not think it could be so- morality, binding even upon heathen na"that these marriages were simply mat- tions before the coming in of the Jews, ters of dispensation in the Roman Catho- for the neglect of which they had been lic Church, and that the Roman Catholic punished. There remained now the conChurch never took upon itself to grant sideration whether any moral distinction dispensations for marriages considered to could be satisfactorily drawn in favour of be incestuous and prohibited by the law of the particular marriages mentioned in God." Now, if by that passage was meant this Bill. He looked with great alarm that the Church of Rome did not, at the upon any attempt to question, and, persame time that she granted dispensations haps, reverse the decisions of ages and for prohibited marriages, admit that she the decrees of Christianity, and to investiwas doing something contrary to the law gate and verify anew the principles on of God, he could understand it; but if which our moral institutions were based. the hon. and learned Gentleman meant to The House of Commons was certainly not say that the Roman Catholic Church did a fit assembly for any such discussion and not take upon herself to grant dispensa- investigation. If demonstration, if argutions for marriages within the Levitical ment that admitted of no answer in a degrees, certainly a more unfounded asser- popular assembly, was to be required for tion was never made. It was a matter of the justification and the maintenance of history that it had been no unfrequent the principles on which our moral instithing for the Church of Rome to grant tutions were founded, there was hardly one a dispensation for the marriage of an uncle of them which, if sufficient agitation were with his niece, which was a marriage un- raised in the country, might not be asequivocally prohibited by Leviticus, and a sailed, and with regard to which it might marriage which we were bound to treat not be said, as it was in this case, "the as incestuous. There were scarcely any argument is all on the side of the suplimits to the pretensions of the Church of porters of a change." The argument in Rome in this respect, and these preten- this case was-" We question the institusions were arrogated for her and defend- tion; we throw upon you the burden of ed by many Roman Catholic writers. On proving your principles; we reject the the Continent of Europe, no doubt, there opinion of ages; a number of people are was considerable laxity in this practice suffering from your prohibition; they want of dispensation, both within and without licence; you meet them by law; we want the Roman Catholic Church, not con- some incontrovertible reason for your fined, however, to this particular cate- law; and there were very few institugory of marriages; but this laxity was co- tions resting on morality which might not existent with the recognition of the fact be attacked by the same arguments were that they were unlawful marriages, that once this principle admitted. There was they were within the prohibitory law, scarcely one prohibition, at all events, though it was assumed that it was com- which could then be secure. Take this petent to dispense with that law in the very subject of marriage. Most persons particular cases. Now, with respect to were under the impression that marriages the argument of the hon. and learned within the forbidden degrees of consanMember for Bath (Mr. Phinn), that the guinity were repugnant to nature, and prohibitions in marriage in this chapter of that there was no fear of men contracting Leviticus were not generally binding, he them, even if there had been no prohiwould answer, that the prohibitions of Le- bition of them. Experience, however, and viticus were of universal application, and the history of the human race afforded no not confined merely to the Jews, was evi- warrant for any such argument. He had dent from the fact that the things pro- already referred to the occasional permishibited were described as being those for sion of marriages between uncle and niece which the Canaanites were so abominable under the Papal system. In the beginning that they were cast out of the land-"For of the human race a man and his sister all these abominations have the men of the might lawfully marry-nay, at the very

VOL. CXXXVIII. [THIRD SERIES.]

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earliest period no other marriage was pos- their own consciences or in the divine comsible. There was a time, then, when such mandment, it certainly would be a difficult marriages were not unlawful or unnatural; thing to show from the letter of Scripture but, as the world advanced, social morality, that polygamy was prohibited. It would which was founded on principles known not exactly do to quote to them the text to divine wisdom and divinely expounded in which it was laid down, that a bishop for the benefit of man, underwent such should be "the husband of one wife," for, modifications as were demanded by the in- of course, the immediate inference would terests of a different, but equally providen- be, that anybody who was not a bishop tial, state of society. The absolute prohi- might be the husband of more than one bitions afterwards imposed did not come all wife. Was not polygamy sanctioned, or at once, for the patriarch Jacob, the foun-permitted at all events, throughout the der of the Israelite nation, actually con-whole of the Old Testament? and he should tracted that marriage which was admitted like to see how it would be attempted to to be forbidden in terms in the 18th verse be proved from the New Testament that of Leviticus-a marriage with two sisters it was there positively prohibited. He at the same time; but whether that was believed that whenever the foundations of done under a special dispensation of Pro- morality with respect to the law of marvidence, or whether the human race had riage were attacked there would always not then arrived at that point of develop-be great danger with respect to polygamy. ment which required, for the sake of mo- At the period of the Reformation the minds rality and society in general, that further of as great men as Luther and Melancthon restrictions should be imposed on mar- were unsettled on this question of polyga riage, the advocates of the Bill could not my; and Luther, when pressed for an opiexplain or account for that fact any more nion by an eminent political personage who than the advocates of the existing law. desired to have liberty to marry a second The morality of the world advanced as the wife, wrote to him thus:-"If your Highworld advanced; and it rested in its im- ness be minded to take to yourself another proved state, upon a progressive moral wife, let the thing be done in secret, that sense, formed mainly upon the principles there be no scandal." In times when men's and the spirit of the precepts of revealed principles were unsettled, when they were religion. There were very few marriages, required to go over again and to verify if any, out of the direct ascending and them all, their minds were necessarily apt descending lines, against which a universal to get bewildered. The Rev. Mr. Binmoral feeling could be proved to exist, in-ney, one of the witnesses produced by the dependently of all aid from Revelation. supporters of this Bill, was an eminent It was the same with regard to poly- instance of this. In one of the answers gamy. As the world advanced the state given by the rev. gentleman before the of public opinion advanced on that sub- Commission, the following passage ocject also. We held now that the pro- curred" It is impossible to determine hibition against polygamy rested on higher in most cases, if not in all, what original grounds than the state of public opi- dictates of nature are, or may be, as disnion[Mr. SPOONER: Hear, hear!] tinct from those superinduced sentiments -but he should like to hear the hon. and feelings which are engendered by Member for North Warwickshire prove from Scripture the absolute immorality of polygamy. If they accepted the arguments of the supporters of the Bill they would prove that, as soon as any similar demand for change in that direction could be got up, the prohibitions against polygamy ought also to be removed. If an association could be formed to agitate up and down the country for petitions against the law which prevented bigamy, to produce 2,000 or 3,000 persons who had married a second time, without waiting for the deaths of their former wives, and who desired to be released from a law for which they professed to find no warrant either in

habit or created by feeling;" an observation which, though made with reference to the prohibited degrees of marriage, was of a very much more extended application. Coming nearer to our own times than Luther, as great a man as he among our own countrymen, Milton, had written in defence of polygamy; he thought all our received morality on that subject was a mistake, and he argued in favour of polygamy on scriptural grounds with all the fervour of a man conscientiously convinced of the truth of his opinions. A most plausible practicable argument might be made out for permitting bigamy if the returns of the number of prosecutions for that

offence were compared with the number of marriages which had been contracted with a deceased wife's sister. Polygamy was not forbidden merely, but severely punished by the law of the land, yet, on going over the criminal returns for the period over which the inquiries of the Commission extended, he found that the number of cases of bigamy which had occurred during that period was about half of that which the Commissioners stated to be the number of these marriages with a deceased wife's sister-the prosecutions would not represent anything like the number of actual cases, and in all probability, therefore, there were just as many cases of polygamy occurring in this country as there were of these particular marriages. The House would easily imagine the consequence of such an argument. It must not be forgotten, too, that there had grown up in our time a very numerous body of people who called themselves the Church of the Latter-day Saints, but who were generally known as Mormons, among whom polygamy was openly practised and professed. A short time ago a very remarkable letter, dated from the Salt Lake City, had appeared in The Times, quoted from The Chicago Tribune, which gave so interesting an account of the manner of life among these people, vindicating polygamy on scriptural and natural grounds, and setting forth the practical results from it as being just as satisfactory as those which they were told would spring from this Bill, that he would, with the permission of the House, read an ex

tract from it

of truth.
But about the practical
operation of polygamy, as you call it. That is
shall enlighten you from my observations and
what you most probably want to know; and I
experience. When I came to Deseret there were
not many who were in the enjoyment of more
than one wife; and many, or most, of the new
comers were opposed to it. But, as they saw how
where there were two or more wives, their preju-
beautifully and harmoniously those families lived
dices gradually gave way; and among no class
was this change more apparent than the women.
At the present time, if a vote were taken on the
subject, I venture to say that nine out of every
ten women who have lived here two years would
sustain our present social system in this par-
ticular."

He set this against similar arguments
which had been used in favour of this Bill.

There was this difference between them certainly; on this question there was an agitation, on that of polygamy there was the foundations of our moral law were unnone, though how soon there might be, if settled, he knew not. The supporters of this Bill insisted strongly on the argument were denied their proper liberty of acting that a considerable body of the community according to their convictions under the law as it at present stood. That, no doubt, was a consideration deserving of attention; but he denied entirely that the House of Commons was at all bound to shape its legislation in accordance with every opinion, which might happen to be held by a large number of persons. No doubt individual liberty should be allowed so long as we were not called on to relax in its favour those principles of morality which the good order of society required us to maintain; but to legislate upon the principle he had "Polygamy! Polygamy! Polygamy! That is referred to would have for its result, that the word which you call it; and one would think, there would be no legislation on any prinfrom the holy horror with which your editors, preachers, and politicians utter it, that it is a ciple of morality at all. In this case, howcrime of magnitude surpassing all others. My ever, there was no infraction whatever of dear friend, I do r.ot doubt many of you think so; the liberty of any class. It was, indeed, but it is all the result of education, nothing else. said that the Dissenters generally took a I assure you I speak from experience; as do thousands of others hereabout, who once thought different view of the scriptural argument as you do. But you must know that the Church from that taken by the Established Church; of Latter-day Saints discards all sectarian dog- but surely the Dissenters did not make it mas, and comes to the plain simple truths of the a point of conscience to marry their wives' Bible; the whole Bible, not a part of it. It looks to the lives of the patriarchs and prophets, the sisters, and nobody pretended that they men of pure religion and undefiled,' for prin- had a greater desire to contract these ciples, as well as to those who came after them. marriages than any other class. It sees no higher or more heavenly state of society truth was, that it happened here and there than that which existed under the authority and direction of Jehovah anterior to the Christian to be the case of individuals-though not era. Not that it opposes any doctrine of Christ, in greater number than might be expected or of those authorised to speak for him, for it and they were asked to alter their prewould leave every one free. No, it gives the sent law because several thousand perhighest sanction it can give to every principle elaborated in the New Testament, while it makes sons, in a series of years, had violated it. the Old and the New entirely harmonise. The But if they sanctioned any such ground doctrine is founded on the Bible, the eternal rock as that for the change, they must be pre

The

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