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band's having stood godfather to the wife's cousin.
It seems to me therefore that the religious objection totally fails; and the legislature treated it as unfounded in 1835, when all marriages solemnized prior to the passing of Lord Lyndhurst's Act were deemed fit subjects of civil policy and virtually made good. It is also to be observed, that the Archbishop of Dublin and the Bishop of Llandaff (clara et venerabilia nomina) are among the supporters of the Bill for the alteration of the law; that six hundred of the clergy have petitioned in favour of it; and that it has been introduced into the House of Lords by Lord Wharncliffe, and into the House of Commons by Lord Francis Egerton; names which have already gone far towards silencing those who hoped to crush its supporters at the outset by the cry of irreligion and immorality.
But although it seems clear that a marriage with the sister of a deceased wife is nowhere prohibited in Scripture, the law will be found on inquiry to be based principally on the assumption that it is so prohibited. To show this, little more is necessary than to explain the manner in which the prohibition has obtained the sanction of the courts.
Prior to the Reformation, the degrees within which persons might marry were prescribed by the canon law; and the restrictions were
