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in danger, does not depend upon the legal prohibition. If it did, the rule would be co-extensive with the prohibition. Now, although brothers-and-sisters-in-law will occasionally be found living together in great intimacy, perfect innocence, and without reproach, still this permitted intimacy varies according to age, character, position, and a host of circumstances too minute to specify. By way of illustration, it is simply necessary to compare the case of a gay man in the prime of life living with a coquettish beauty, and that of a staid middle-aged widower living with a plain, dowdy, respectable old maid. Yet the legal prohibition exists in both cases.
Laws framed on the sic volo, sic jubeo principle, especially when relating to morals, have proved nugatory or mischievous in all ages. The Bishop of London, however, conceives that it is simply necessary for a legislature to issue its decrees:
"When the fact is once known, that it is impossible to contract a marriage with a certain person, say a wife's sister, why should there be any more difficulty in a man's shaping his inclinations, affections, wishes and thoughts in such a line, as to shut out from his contemplation all idea of marriage with that person, anymore than with his own sister by blood? I see none."
Others see a great deal; or why have so many enlightened Christian communities, after
