WHY AM I IN FAVOUR OF THE DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER
BILL ?
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR...I
have lived long with two wives. Each in turn has had a sister to whom she was devoted ; and in both cases each wife would have chosen her sister as guardian of her children, in preference to any other woman. In both cases I have lived on the terms of closest intimacy with the sisters, and intercourse with them has been one of the chief blessings of my life and household. To say that this intercourse had any relation what- ever to the question whether I could or could not marry with one of the sisters is so false as to be absurd. To say that the purity and happiness of this intercourse depended in the slightest degree on a law which, like the naked sword of the Eastern fable, placed an artificial barrier between myself and my wives' sisters, is revolting alike to common-sense and to decent feeling.
And yet these are the objections which Bishops and Judges dare to put forward as reasons for refusing to give legal sanction to a practice which nature and convenience prompt, and which the poor, in spite of law, must and will follow.—I am, Sir, Scc , X.
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