BREACH-OF-PROMISE ACTIONS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin, —I have read with great interest your article on Mt.- Herschell's Bill for the abolition of actions for Breach of Promise- of Marriage, and sympathise with all that you say in its favour. May I suggest an answer to the objections to it which you sewn- to think so conclusive ? Your objection is mainly that it would remove a check on seduction, and that check, if I understand, you. rightly, is the fear of the seducer that he will be compelled.to marry. I conclude also that you think, as many do, that it is best for the girl seduced that she should marry her seducer. May I venture to point out that all you say against unhappy mar- riages would apply in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred to such marriages with far more force? In the other cases of which you speak, the man may be merely thoughtless and foolish, in this case he is a cowardly villain. If, too, he has any reluctance to marry, will he not be more certain than in any other case to make the wife miserable? But there is a higher consideration than this. Does not such a marriage take away often the chance of return to real purity of thought on the part of the girl, and if she has borne a child, does it not bring that child permanently under an evil influence ?
I feel so much how opposed this view is to the conventional view, that I should hardly have courage to write it, had I not the opinion of a pure-minded woman of genius to back me. Mrs. Gaskell's " Ruth " is far more convincing to me than a thousand- ordinary arguments.—I am, Sir, &c., C. E. MAURIcE.
[Our correspondent quite misunderstands our argument. It was not one in favour of the marriage between seducer and seduced, but simply this,—that seduction would often be unsuc- cessful except under a promise of marriage, and that the more unprincipled a man is, the more he will hesitate to give such promise when he has the fear of the action for breach of promise before his eyes, though he would give it without compunction if he had no legal consequences to fear.—ED. Spectator.]
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