One hundred years ago
The marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Bill passed its second reading in the House of Lords, on Monday, by a majority of seven (165 for it and 158 against it), the division showing a much larger number on both sides than have ever been mustered on this Bill before; the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Con- naught, and the Duke of Albany voting for the Bill, while the two Archbishops and twenty Bishops voted against it. Not a single Bishop gave his vote in its favour. The discussion was not a very great one. Lord Bramwell made a vigorous, but rather too jocose speech in favour of the Bill, while Lord Carr- ington showed that there is a very real demand for it among the working- classes. Lord Coleridge replied to Lord Bramwell, maintaining that no Bill which does not put the whole relations of consanguinity and affinity on some footing of distinct principle is even worthy of consideration; while the Archbishop of Canterbury insisted on the supposed Scriptural prohibition, and argued that the dispensations for such marriages so early given by Rome prove that the Church had disapproved such marriages from the beginning — which is true; but then, these dispensations also prove that the Church's disapprobation was never of an insurmountable kind.
Spectator, 16 June 1883
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