SPEECH
OF THE
RIGHT HON. LORD SELBORNE.
The Lord Chancellor: This is no party question. It is, however, a question which affects society in general—not only those who ask for a change of the law for their own particular benefit, but equally those who do not want the law changed. Before I say anything as to that which is the first proposition of the Bill—namely, the expediency of amending the law respecting marriage with a deceased wife's sister—I will follow the example of my noble friend who has just sat down,[1] and make, some observations on the Bill itself, which a great number of those who have addressed the House have not paid much attention to. The Bill does not attempt to follow up its own principle to its proper limits, or to reconstruct the law of marriage on any consistent or symmetrical grounds, and consequently it will pave the way to further agitations and further changes. The duty of the office which I still hold obliges me to say that I think it is hard to conceive a more dangerous, a more alarming invitation to systematic, deliberate violation of the law than that contained in the first clause of the Bill. See how the matter stands. Down to the passing of Lord Lyndhurst's Act these marriages were, and always had been, illegal—as illegal as they are now,—and I was surprised to hear some of the old misconceptions on this point revived by the noble Lord who introduced the Bill. However this may be, after the passing of Lord Lyndhurst's Act all possibility of misconception about the law of marriage was at an end. From that time forward, at least, it was known to all men that every such attempt at marriage—for marriage it is not-
- ↑ The Earl of Dudley
