THE DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER BILL.
[To Tail EDITOR OF TAM " SpzoTATon."3 SIR,—In your postscript to the letter of your correspondent "L.," you say : "A voidable marriage is not a void marriage." May I quote in reply a simple dictum of an authority you will not question,—Lord Brougham, in his judgment in "Fenton v. Livingstone,"—" These marriages were voidable because they were void "P You also say, "It is certainly a legal marriage till it is voided;" but it is obvious that no Court of Law could void or declare void a marriage not already void by the law, of which the Court is but the mouthpiece. Other- wise might one not maintain that the possession of stolen goods was legal, till it was voided by a successful prosecution (which might never be attempted) P The fallacy seems to lie in missing the difference between illegality and the penalty of illegality, which in the case of illegal marriage rarely falls on the actual offenders, but always on the children.—I am, Sir,
PHILADELPEITS.
[If this were so, what was the good of the Act which made the voidable marriages void? The Act must have been a mere redundancy, and would never been brought in.—En. Spectator.]
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