Affinity No Bar to Marriage/Part 1

§ 1. Marriage with deceased wife's sister, being not only lawful and frequent in this country, but "deemed in a moral, religious and Christian sense, exceedingly praiseworthy" (Story's Conflict of Laws, § 115), Bishop Doane's pamphlet against it is quite startling. ("God's Law of Marriage, by Wm. Croswell Doane, Bishop of Albany." New York, 1880.)

We have known, indeed, that our Civil-Laws, and Protestant public-opinion on this subject, differed from Romish canons and practices, that yet prevail in England. But we have commonly accepted as right, our own inherited Marriage-system; and few of us have seriously considered the subject thus introduced to public attention. And when Bishop Doane comes forward, as the Champion of 24 Protestant Bishops, who carried (against 20) the Romish prohibition,^[1] and with confident assurance, presents a "God's law," against such marriage, it may be well to revise the foundations of our faith, and see whether his law be such, or only a medieval Canon.

​In pursuing this inquiry, whilst we should give ear to the "watchmen who blow the trumpet" (p. 28)^[2] of their Marriage Gospel, and be open to conviction, we should consider that our Modern-Civilization, of which current opinion on this subject forms a part, is incomparably beyond that of earlier ages, to which the Bishop directs us, and yields no light presumption in our favor. Standing then on this vantage-ground of presumptive right, let us meet our assailants, and see whether the weapons they raise against us, are from the armory of the God of Hosts, or only antiquated wooden guns.

In conducting our research, we may fairly assume that the Bishop's pamphlet presents against us the strength of the Ecclesiastical side; and unless it shall sustain its "God's Law" manifesto, we need not believe it a "Sin" that we take our sisters-in-law to wife, instead of subjecting them, as in Papal-States and England, to the servitude of upper-nurses and house-keepers.

Taking then our stand-point in the living and honored Present, let us follow the Bishop back into the dim Past for his antique law.

Our attention is thus first drawn to laws of 25 and 28, Henry VIII (A. D., 1533 & '6), as forbidding such marriages. And as these take us back of the Reformation, and to periods when lay reading of the English Bible, was prohibited alike by State and Church, we are not disposed to reverence the dictation of that age. But being honest inquirers, let us see what comes down to us from these sources:

Henry VIII wanted to wed Catherine of Aragon, who had been betrothed, and by an Ecclesiastical fiction, mar​ried to his late brother Arthur. But the Church's "prohibited degrees" of that period, included such relationship of brother's fictitious widow, and barred the marriage. It however harmonized with the politics of the Papacy, and a Dispensation was granted by Pope Julius II, on the ground that such bar was only Ecclesiastical; and English Clergy cried Amen, and Catherine became their Queen. Later, the King tired of Catherine, and lusted after Anne Boleyn; and seeking a Dispensation to wed her, his pliant Ecclesiastics urged it on the reverse theory, that the marriage with Catherine was void, because the bar against it was Scriptural, and therefore not dispensable. But the Papacy retained its former position, and refused a Dispensation. Thereupon, the King being set in his amour, and his Ecclesiastics and Parliament being supple panderers to it, its English branch rebelled against the Church's doctrine, that such degree was only Ecclesiastical, and set up an unreformed English Church, with the Royal Adulterer at its Head, and its schismatic dogma, of a Scriptural-prohibition of marriage with a deceased brother's Ecclesiastical widow, as its distinctive principle.

Then followed the act of 25 Henry VIII divorcing Henry from Catherine, and legalizing his adultery with Anne (Elizabeth was born Sept. 7, 1533) on the then English theory, that marriage with brother's widow was anti-Scriptural. But presently followed that of 28th year, vacating the marriage with Anne, on the opposite theory, that the brother's widow degree was only Ecclesiastical; and during the reign of Mary, her legitimacy, ​and that theory, prevailed. Then when Elizabeth became Queen (1558), her legitimacy demanded the former theory; and, having made Parker, her mother's chaplain, Archbishop of Canterbury, he made up for her the 1560 Table of Degrees; but they never became authoritative, for want of Parliamentary sanction. (Westminster Rev., July, 1880, Art. iv, p. 44.)

That the King's adultery, and the corruption of his Priesthood and Parliament, opened a way to later good, is gladly recognized. But no respect is due, to either of the opposite teachings of the Henry VIIIth Church on this subject; nor can the Parker table command any respect. But instead, these events teach that at least in that age, Prohibited Degrees were but Ecclesiastical contrivances, with which State and Church "played fast and loose" as interest and policy dictated.

It is also a significant fact, that modern England is strongly arrayed against its sister-in-law restriction. Seven times its House of Commons have passed a repeal; with little more than the help of a pervading moral conviction, that marriage with sister-in-law is appropriate and right, petitions for such repeal go up from vast numbers; in 1880 Lord Houghton presented one of 42,500 women of Leeds alone; in answer to a late call by post, 1,820 electors of Mid-lothian thus petitioned. out-numbering the votes ever cast for any Parliamentary candidate for Edingburg-shire; the House of Commons last year had over 400 members in favor of the repeal, but a few bitter opponents were able, by a trick, to postpone its business order beyond its being reached; and in the Upper House the Bench of Bishops are continuing the wrong only by diminishing majorities. Last year, the majority in the House of Lords, against the second reading of Lord Houghton's bill, was only 11; and may be said to have been made up of Bishops, for 11 ​voted against it—being all the voting Bishops, except the Bishop of Ripon.

The same West. Rev. says of these Bishops: "In every division, they are found largely to turn the scale against the Bill. Chargeable as they are with the infinite mischiefs of the act of 1835, they yet refuse to lend any aid in correcting them; they are resolute in the face of the House of Commons and of the country, in their attitude of defiance. Verily, they justify their antecedents. For what measure of reform and justice, have they not resisted? That Slavery has been abolished—that the People have obtained Reform—that the Corn-laws were repealed—that an alien Church in Ireland was disestablished.—that the Roman-catholics and the Jews have acquired the rights of citizens—so far from being due to their votes and influence, are results achieved against all their exertions. Which of the Reformers have they not persecuted? Which of the Reforms have they not opposed?" (The Art. then excepts the Bishops of Worcester and Ripon.)

Can it be that our 24 Bishops are only serving their English brethren? It would seem so; for they can scarcely hope, that the House of Deputies will unite in the child's play of making paper Canons, to war with Civil Laws, and a contemptuous Public-opinion. And if so, the rewards which such a service may yield them abroad, are a sorry equivalent for the harm they do at home.

But Bishop Doane leads us further back, and invites attention to his voluminous evidences, that the marriage in question was (1st) within the "prohibited degrees" of Canon-Law, from perhaps the 6th century; and (2nd) was forbidden in some places in the 4th century.

Glancing at such evidences, it fills us with alarm to find, that "up to the 13th century, inter-marriage was forbidden between (relatives) by affinity, to the seventh degree" (p. 21.)^[3]: For, if the revered Ecclesiastics of those earlier centuries were right, there is a fearful amount of the Bishop's "incest" going on in Church ​circles, in these "licentious" times, so far removed from those advanced periods. And then, as we go back of the Bishop's evidences, to more primitive centuries, we even reach a period, when all second marriages were prohibited; and the case grows worse.

Noticing these things, and considering how decisive early authority is, to all whose ideal is in the past, we cannot but appreciate the leniency of the House of Bishops, in starting with the modest beginning of the Henry VIIIth Church, and working back slowly to the earlier Fathers. And as we are not of those who face to the dark ages, it is a relief to learn, that starting thence and coming toward the light, "prohibited degrees" continuously diminished as general intelligence increased; for it is inferable, that they had but an uncertain foundation, and with the associated dispensations for violating them, were only corrupt devices for strengthening Ecclesiastical Power, and lining the Church's coffers.

Of course, our opponents, despite their devotion to authority, ask our respect only for the retained degrees of the 16th century, and scorn that authority, as to scores of dropped degrees, whose absurdity they are pleased to recognize. But this puts them in the awk ward fix, of asking respect for an Authority, which has confessedly been persistently wrong, on the general question of degrees. And we must be quite safe, in according without stint, to the instruction of Fathers and Councils on this subject, that scorn of which their best friends yield them such large measure.

​Indeed, as we analyze Church-Authority concerning Prohibited Degrees, its teaching is not that of any one period, for all its various other teachings are against each one; nor is it of a degree that is common to all, for that rule would equally have prevented each successive diminution. (Ex. gr. In 16th Century, that Authority was oppressive, against dropping the degree of first cousins.) But that teaching is the Church's Law of relaxing its Degrees, with advancing intelligence. And if our Bishops had heeded this, and considered the advance since 25 Henry VIII, they would have seen that the time has fully come, for yielding all degrees of mere affinity.

But all such authority, at its best, yields only Human law, and not the Bishop's God's law.

The Bishop claims, however, for his "catena of authorities" much more than that the sister-in-law case was within the "prohibited degrees." What he does, is to go back to Lev. xviii for his "God's law"; and not content with its poor help, he tenders his Catena as proof, that his interpretation of the chapter—as prohibiting marriage with sister-in-law—has prevailed "in all ages, and in all portions of the Christian Church," (p. 9) and "is so ancient, and so universal, as to come almost, if not quite, within the Vincentian Rule" (p. 8). And we shall assume, for the present, that his Catena dates his interpretation back to St. Basil, his earliest authority. (4th Century.)

​Now an operative Mosaic-law, and such an interpretation of it, is a very serious affair; and if the Bishop is right, a question arises whether any whom such law condemns, should not adopt its accompanying expedient, of writing Bills of Divorcement to their wives, and bidding them say an affectionate Farewell. But we must not be alarmed too soon, into that low-lived practice, that belonged to the Mosaic marriage-system, (which our opponents affect so much,) of buying wives like cattle, keeping them as mere slaves to passion, and only during pleasure, and that recognized woman as devoid of any right (even of virtue) which lustful men were required to respect (Exod. xx: 7-11; Deut. xxiv: 1; Lev. xix: 20; Deut. xxii: 22-29, etc., etc.); And so, in the interest of Love, and Virtue, and advanced Morals, and Christian Monogamy (instead of Jewish Polygamy) let us see, if we may not live on with them, until parted by death.

Starting then, with the supposed interpretation against us, "so ancient and so universal," we next examine the Vincentian Rule (Quod semper. quod ubique. quod ab omnibus) and we see at once, that it demands an early, as well as continuous and universal interpretation. And lo! we breathe freely again, as the period which Bishop Doane boldly minimizes to "almost, if not quite," nothing at all, reveals itself as a yawning gulf of 1800 years.

Indeed, as we inform ourselves about the intervening Jewish interpretation, of the law given to that nation, and which the Bishop proclaims, we become quite jubilant, on seeing that his Vincentian Rule is a petard, which shivers his Catena to atoms. For on inquiry into Jewish history and lore, we find that from the days of Moses down through the 18 centuries, which had elapsed when (as supposed), St. Basil initiated a contrary reading of Lev. xviii, the Jewish nation, Rabbis and People, had continuously interpreted and practiced ​it, with universal sanction, as permitting marriage with deceased wife's sister. Ergo: The Vincentian Rule (its principle) commanded acceptance of such Jewish interpretation, by Christian Fathers and Councils; and it equally excludes an adherence to the reverse one, by Bishop Doane, and his little coterie. The case is as if the Mormons, after a like lapse of 18 centuries, should initiate a new reading of Christ's teachings, as enjoining polygamy.

But it may be asked, does Bishop Doane state the controlling fact of such Jewish interpretation? Oh! no: it was not for a partisan advocate to give any such admission. But when we find his guide (Dr. Pusey), on the witness-stand before a Commission of Enquiry into the sister-in-law restriction, the fact is drawn out. (Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister, by Dr, E. B. Pusey and E. Badeley, Esq. Ans. 440–2; Preface, p. li.)

Clearly this dilemma, between sister-in-law servitude and the Vincentian Rule, is a sorry one for our opponents. But though the Jewish interpretation puts us at ease, we must not flatter ourselves, that artful Ecclesiastics can be paled on the horns of a dilemma. And let us see, for the nonce, how an adroit partisan, like Dr. Pusey, met this difficulty: And we at once find, that as 1800 years are, in Bishop Doane's sight, only as one day, so the feat of getting rid of the Vincentian Rule, when it worked against him, was just as easy to Dr. Pusey as ​A B C. All that he found needful for a favorable and Christian audience, was an off-hand slur at the Jews, ex. gr. "As for the traditions of the Jewish Church, they must, any how, it seems, be adverse to Christianity." (Ibid., Preface li.) Capital: is it not? And how telling an appeal to Christian prejudice! And what a fine rap at the Jews! And how depreciatory of their interpretation of their Pentateuch! Only think of it, what wonderful prescience those ante-christian Jews had, of the future coming of St. Basil and Henry VIIIth's supple Ecclesiastics, et hoc genus omne; and with what artifice, they occupied themselves from the Mosaic era to the arrival of St. Basil, in marrying their sisters-in-law, and reading Lev. xviii as permitting it, just to upset St. Basil's teachings, and the Henry VIIIth Gospel of Divorce.

Or, if that way of dodging the Vincentian Rule affords no escape, and the alternative be adopted, that the Jews unfortunately did not understand Hebrew, and were misled by an awkwardness of the law, this would charge God with a serious mistake, in giving them an unintelligible Hebrew law—a law that was not one to those to whom it was one. And in such case, how strange that God let them go on, in ignorant disobedience of the actual law, for 15 centuries, and until after that Dispensation had closed! And how marvellous that He did not earlier send Dr. Pusey, or Bishop Doane, to translate to the Hebrews, His blind law into intelligible English.

We have thus far assumed that such Catena substantiates the claim for it, of proving an interpretation of Lev. xviii, as forbidding the marriage in question, back to St. Basil (4th Century, A. D.). And if we should accept ​as proof the Bishop's confident assurances to above effect, it would be overwhelming.

But the best men are sometimes carried away by zeal, and err; and let us now examine this matter.

Taking up his liberal quotations of the vulgarities of St. Basil, who is the Bishop's favorite authority, that acrimonious Father reveals himself, on inspection, as resting his indecent hostility to marriage with sister-in-law, on "Custom," "Rules" (p. 21) and "Nature" (p. 22); and therefore he appears, as not an authority on the point to which he is cited, but as imputing such marriages to foul motives, and thus doing a defamatory service. Warned thus, and resorting to The Speaker's Commentary (by Bishops and other Clergy of the Anglican Church), we learn (vol. 1, p. 601) that St. Basil "declared that the Mosaic law of Prohibited-Degrees does not bind Christians, more than the law of Circumcision."^[4] Thus, that coarse Saint must be dropped from the Bishop's Catena, and stand good only for his Ribaldry, and against the Bishop, as to the permanency of Lev. xviii.

​Proceeding with his Catena, we further find that, with a single exception, all the Bishop's authorities concerning earlier periods than Henry VIIIth's Divorce law, utterly fail to show, or intimate, that the degree in question, or any Prohibited-Degree, was based on Lev. xviii, or was other than simply Ecclesiastical. That exception is a citation (p. 24) from Dr. Pusey concerning the Easternchurch, whose Degrees differed widely from the Westernchurch, and whose authority on the subject is insignificant.

Thus seeing the deplorable poverty of the "Catena," as evidence that the degree in question was based on an interpretation of Lev. xviii against us, we turn again to The Speaker's Com. (V. 1, p. 601) and see that "the Fathers in general, most of the Schoolmen, and the medieval Church," did not regard the Levitical Degrees as in current force;—and it thence follows that they did not repose their Prohibited Degrees thereon.

It is not therefore surprising, that Bishop Doane's Catena so miserably fails to sustain his position; and our only surprise is, that he ventured such groundless claims for it.

To the foregoing, may be added these considerations, against a repose of the degree in question on Lev. xviii, before Henry VIIIth's Church resorted there, for defending his adultery with Anne Boleyn.

1. It is generally conceded, and very clear, that v. 18 implies the lawfulness of marriage with a deceased wife's sister, unless our translation "a wife to her sister" be changed to "one wife to another," or the like. But the Hebrew was similarly translated (as in Eng. Bible) in the Septuagint (B. C.) the Targums of Onkelos and of Ben ​Uziel, the Mishna, the Vulgate, etc.; and such translation was unchallenged from the 3rd century B. C., to 1575 A. D., when Junius and Tremellius initiated a new version (Ibid., p. 602). But despite the imperative need of a radical change, for basing a restriction against sister-in-law on Lev. xviii, the old and natural translation was adhered to by the King James' translators, in 1611.

   In introducing this subject to public attention, it would seem that Justice and Truth demanded of Bishop Doane a judicial rather than a partisan statement of the case; and that he should at least have stated that his version of v. 18 was a novel one, and was repudiated by The Speaker's Commentary.

2. The continued polygamy of Israel, and of its best men, verifies the regular translation; for such change would convert v. 18 into an improbable law against polygamy. (See Part II.)
3. The far-reaching Prohibited Degrees, from the 6th to the 14th century, preclude their having been based on Lev. xviii.

   Note.—Says Jeremy Taylor, "The reasons given by the projectors of this Canon law were as fit a cover for the dish as could be imagined. There are four humours in the body of a man, they say, to which because the four degrees of consanguinity do answer, it is proportionable to nature, to forbid the marriage of cousins to the fourth degree."

4. Ecclesiastical power rendered such repose needless. Dogmatism ruled, and the people lacked both Bibles and learning.
5. The doctrine of the Western Church, (including its English branch,) as to the Degree of brother's widow, when Henry VIIIth married Catherine, was adverse to such basis.

And thus we fairly reach the conclusion,—that the repose on Lev. xviii of the degree in question was only as a parallel to that of brother's widow; and that such repose of the latter originated in 1533, as a distinctive ​dogma of the English Church, propounded in defence of Henry VIIIth's adulterous union with Anne Boleyn. And it is also reasonably inferable, that the uniform Principle of the very varying "Prohibited degrees" from the 3rd to the 16th century, was not a currently corresponding exegesis of Lev. xviii, but an adoption of blood-degrees of various remoteness, and an extension of those degrees to marriage-relatives—probably, on the fiction of a Marriage-Fleshship.

Therefore, it very certainly follows from the foregoing, that Authority, which our Bishops are reasonably supposed to respect very highly, is most oppressive against them; and that their Champion's strong assertions to the contrary, are wofully opposed to Fact.

In making the long leap back to Moses, we cannot fail to notice that Bishop Doane jumps an era, which Christendom regards of no mean importance as shaping its Civilization, and yielding its Moral and Social laws. Nor can we be indifferent to the startling fact, that he wholly ignores certain Gospels and Epistles, which we are prone to value somewhat higher, than any obscene Diatribe of St. Basil, or the Polygamous Code that intervened the primitive days when Jacob worked 14 years for only two wives, (and the best one of those a sister-in-law) and the more affluent period when Solomon reigned in glory, and had a bountiful harem of 700 wives and 300 concubines. (I Kings, xi: 3.)

Pausing thus at the wall across the ages, which divides the Old centuries from the New, the Mosaic from the Gospel period, and the age of Lines and Precepts from that of Faith, Hope and Love, we might well rest there, instead of following the Bishop, in an archæological search, amongst the ruins of Judaism, for some ​mutilated fragment, which he can transform into a hostile missile. But let us follow him on.

Concerning the Mosaic-code, as such, we suppose that the House of Bishops have about the same idea as the rest of the Christian world. They would not dispute that it has, in general, been superseded by the Gospel Dispensation, and become obsolete; nor would they criticise the general completeness of the New Testament. In fact, it is unlikely, that in the whole range of life and duty, there is another instance, in which they find the New Testament deficient, and are thus driven to the Old, for their authority. Thus, it is but a wee bit they want to add to the New Testament—only a little supplement borrowed from Marriage-laws of that obsolete Code—and then it will be all right in their eyes, and Christianity become a well rounded and Perfect System.

But Christian Consistency fairly requires our Bishops to submit to the silence of the New Testament on this subject, and to Civil-Laws and Public-Opinion, that are in full harmony with its Teachings. At least, instead of resorting to a defunct polygamous-system for a marriage-law, they may well continue the Good-policy of Silence. For the spirit of the age has put marriage on a broader basis than their narrow authority, and on a higher plane than their Flesh one: And if they could carry the House of Deputies with them, their best success would be a brutum fulmen.

Presuming thus to add somewhat from such Code to the Gospel, we wonder by what Authority the Church can issue an Eclectic Edition of that Code, and incorporate it into the New Testament. Surely, there should ​be ample authority for such high-handed work; and it would not, by any means answer, to commit it to bunglers. And let us see, what authority Bishop Doane appends to his edition, of Mosaic Laws Binding on Christians; and as the Volume is small, we give it in full, with the text revised to suit his fancy "A man shall not marry any flesh of his flesh, or his brother's widow,"—extended by parallelism to deceased wife's sister. His authority is this (we quote in full) "It is plainly part of the Moral law, and therefore unrepealed by God, and unalterable by man." (p. 9.)

But we cannot see that the supposed law against marrying brother's widow, is any more moral than the opposite one (Deut. xxv: 5), requiring marriage with her, if the brothers were neighbors and she were childless; nor can we see the supposed parallelism, or that either law stands on any different footing from scores of other Mosaic-laws, which our Bishops unite with Christendom in rejecting as obsolete.

Indeed, in every such case, whether one or another law commends itself as moral, or seems exceptional, is largely a matter of varying judgment, depending upon education and circumstances. Thus, many Englishmen, who have been accustomed to laws and social life, that favor the domestication of sisters-in-law, as a useful class of upper-servants, may deem it so conveniently natural to use them in that way, that they have come to regard their humble situation as a sort of Divine Institution. And it is fair to suppose, that Bishop Doane affects this English notion, and so, regards marriage with a sister-in-law as quite unnatural, and therefore immoral. But any such idea, is certainly exceptional in this country amongst Protestants; for here the voices of nature and morality dictate that "sweetest and most natural thing" of making wives, not servants, of sisters-in-law who please us; ​and Protestant judgment sanctions Nature's law of marriage, rather than the Bishop's law against marriage with brother's widow, which he constructs from God's law against illicit intercourse with a brother's wife. Thus habits, and modes of thought, affect our judgment on such questions; and it is very unsafe to issue an Eclectic Edition of God's laws (choosing one and rejecting another) upon distinctions of individual taste; and no one can impose any such edition upon others.

But perhaps we have misunderstood the Bishop, as to what it is that he asserts is part of the Moral-law; and that he refers not to this or that provision which suits his fancy, but to the subject of Marriage as a Moral one, and to Mosaic laws on that subject, as Moral-laws, which therefore abide.

If such be his meaning, the citations in 2d paragraph of § 4 (ante) abundantly discredit the Mosaic Marriage-system as a moral one; but we yield space to a few other objections.

The theory that Marriage formed the subject of Lev. xviii: 6–17 is not at present called in question.

1st. That system was one of temporary expedients, adapted only to a low stage of polygamous life; and that Protestant Bishops should resort to such a system for marriage-laws, shocks moral-sentiment. Even Dr. Pusey admits that "Marriage is altogether in a degraded state, when parties on mutual consent can have the marriage vow dissolved"; and it was in a worse state under Mosaic-law, for the husband alone could dissolve it at will.

2d. The penalties of such laws (commonly death) were part of them; and the laws fell, with the power to enforce them.

​3d. If such laws were moral and enduring, that against a high-priest's marrying a widow (Lev. xxi: 14) abides; but our Bishops do not seem to hold so; for its principle is often violated without objection. Likewise, that against the "abomination" of remarriage with divorced wife, intermediately married to another (Deut. xxiv: 1–14) abides; but Bishops and Deputies have lately ruled that what God abominated, they approve. (Conv. Jour., 1877; Dig. Canons, Tit. 11. Canon 13, § 11.)

4th. The principle that such laws and kindred ones, are Moral and abiding, would open a wide door to licentiousness, by lowering morality to their standard.

No disrespect is thus meant to such Code, as furnishing practicable restraints upon the animalism of that youthful period of Jewish life; but we reserve that disrespect for the undiscernment that would apply to this age, the social laws given to that one.

It matters little, what portions of the Code our opponents would rescue from its general abrogation, on the basis of their supposed morality: for it is a fatal objection to any such edition, that a pre-supposed moral-ability to make the selections, would preclude a needful resort to such code. Divine-laws are of no authority or value, if we may accept one as moral and abiding, and reject another as an expedient and temporary, according to our liking. Too much depends on Henry's wanting to marry Catherine, or to be divorced from her and marry Anne.

If our Bishops were using Mosaic laws as choice models for framing Canons, or were issuing a Pastoral-letter, and advocating the marriage-system and domestic life of Mosaic times, either would be within their discretion. But for them to set up as a Law of God, one or another ​verse from Lev. xviii, selected by them on fancied moral grounds, from the dead bones of polygamous Judaism, involves a despotic assumption of Moral-Infallibility.

And now, though already fully assured that all whose qualities commend them as wives, may rightly succeed their sisters in that Christian relation, let us take up our Bible, and go back with our quasi instructors, to the Mosaic code, and see what it really amounts to.

Turning thus to Lev. xviii, for the supplemental gospel of marriage, our attention is instantly drawn to v. 18, "Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister to vex her ∗ besides the other in her life-time." Evidently, this forbade Jewish-polygamy with two sisters, and not only left marriage with a deceased wife's sister entirely free, but by clear implication justified it. Nor do our Bishops deny this. But this does not balk their zeal. What they do in this emergency, is coolly to discard the Bible given to us, and substitute a Hebrew one, and translate it to suit themselves; and presto, they turn the permission thus given, into a general law against polygamy (p. 17), which was hidden from the Jews, but revealed in the fulness of time, after 3000 years, to English Ecclesiastics, along with the discovery that Henry VIIIth's adultery with Anne was Scriptural.

When thus robbed of v. 18, and we turn back to v. 6, "None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him," we say at once,—that does not prohibit marriage with a sister-in-law, for she is not near of kin. But away they thrust our Bible again, and tell us that "near of kin" is a mistake, and should read flesh of his flesh. Well, say we, if you make that change, it avails you nothing, for a wife's sister is not of the husband's flesh.

​Avail nothing? say our Fleshists, in effect. Oh! ye "self-willed and licentious people" (p. 7), whose "corruption is very dull" (p. 27)! Why read ye the Scripture-law as if it meant what it says? Ye should rather hear us when we "blow the trumpet" of our gospel in thine ears (p. 28). For lo! we show you a Mystery, which secures to us the expansion of the text to any extent, and whereby the Church, in its period of medieval power, and blessed days of popular ignorance, extended its Ecclesiastical Degrees even unto the seventh degree by affinity. Ye must not read "flesh of his flesh" in its natural sense of fruit of his body, but accept our teaching, that "one flesh" descriptively used in Gen. ii: 24, is literal, and "flesh of his flesh" in the definite law, Lev. xviii: 6, is figurative.

Nor think ye that the union of husband and wife, is a Loving union of Heart, Hope and Happiness; for this is a heresy. But hear ye the Word of the Flesh, which we unfold to you, even our wonderful Dogma of the Marriage-Flesh,—which "is not the man's flesh, nor the woman's ∗ (but) a new Flesh, a compound Flesh, Flesh of which each equally partakes (not by absorption of either one into the other, but the new one flesh into which each equally enters—[p. 18],) ∗ not ∗ by addition a double Flesh of man and woman, but ∗ by union ∗ made into one Flesh ∗ (whereby) those who are part of his Flesh are part of the new flesh which she shares with him, and so part of her flesh; and she cannot marry any relation of his, whom she could not marry in the same relation by birth to her." (p. 13, 14, Capitals and italics being also Bishop Doane's.) And verily this mystery of an "unadded," "unabsorbed," doubly-shared, "new," compound, "double," "one-flesh," is the twin of the dogma of Transubstantiation ​"and while it is figurative, because it is a mystery, it is a ∗ fact because it is" (p. 15) figurative.

Flesh! Flesh! And what shall we say to these "deceits of the flesh"? what to this medieval theory for converting Affinity to Fleshinity?—thus elaborated by Bishop Doane, as if in irony, if it were not that its absurdity is nothing to its advocates, if such Flesh be only derived from Ecclesiastical ancestry—what to those who thus "mind the things of the Flesh," and bringing unto us the materialistic traditions of their medieval Fathers, "are witnesses unto themselves that they are the children of them which killed the prophets" of Civil and Religious Liberty?

They call their marriage-flesh a "mystery"; but shall we therefore bow our brains before our fallible Bishops, and approach its consideration with infantile simplicity, and a submissive determination that the more incredible it is, the more we will believe it? No—the day for such foolish obeisance is past; and the misfortune of those who would palm off such trash on the 19th century, is that they belong to the middle-ages, and have a place amongst us only as Anachronisms.

What then is this mystery about? Does it concern a marriage-flesh as a physical fact?—then let the anatomist's knife find it. Is it a physiological proposition?—then let that science prove it. Is it a mystery which reason takes hold of, but whose all it cannot grasp—a conception which the mind seizes and certifies, but whose measure is infinity? No; but a priestly jumble of inconsistent and senseless phrases—a solecism—a Priest-mystery. Its method is to construe "one flesh" used in Gen. ii: 24, to describe the clinging quality of that union ​between husband and wife, whereby he "shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto" her, as if it were used literally, and man and wife were a flesh unit; and then the self-contradictory nonsense of an unadded—unabsorbed—doubly-shared—new—compound—double—one-flesh follows; and then Priest-craft rears "mystery" as its only defence against Reason and Truth.

"One flesh" as thus descriptive of a union of heart and life, is a simple truth which history and life verify; but thus true as a figure, it is false as a flesh fact; and by adopting that falsity for truth, our Bishops substitute a Flesh, for that Spirit of Love, which sanctifies God's institution of marriage.

We are however told that this ridiculous dogma, of a Compound Elemental Double One Flesh, comes down from Fathers and Councils. But that they debased the Spiritual union of Christ and his Church into a Bodily one, and the Loving union of husband and wife into a Flesh one, only illustrates the disservice of Priestcraft, in materializing Spiritual verities into Corporeal falsities.

But though such "mystery" were not a falsity, and an actual marriage-flesh joined husband and wife as firmly as the link that united the Siamese twins, that would not enable our Fleshists, to bring a wife's sister into Fleshship with the husband: For the flow of life is downward from parent to child, and not upward, nor across from sister to sister; and so the Fleshship of two sisters, consists only in their equal heritage of the flesh of common parents; and is one completed at their birth. And therefore, a new marriage-flesh acquired by one sister, could possibly find its way into the other's flesh, and so bring her into flesh-relation with the husband, only by going ​from the married sister, up the downward flow of life to the common parents, and thence to the other sister, by their supplying her with a new physical organization. And thus, their dogma of a Marriage-flesh, avails nothing to our Fleshists, as a flesh-link between a husband and his wife's relations, without another Dogma, that such Marriage-flesh effects a Supernatural Regeneration of the Flesh of collaterals. And verily, our Bishops can scarcely hope for converts to their Flesh-theology, amongst the wise or prudent, but only amongst unintelligent and credulous babes.

But we are assured by history that "evils work their own cure," and in poetry, that "error ∗ dies among his worshippers"; and so this fleshizing of the idea of marriage-unity, allied, as it is, (p. 15) and logically so, with a like corporealizing of the spiritual unity of Christ and his Church, is inherently suicidal. For as the members of his church, thus made corporeal "members of his Body, his Flesh, and his Bones" (sic, p. 15) cannot commit the harlotry of mingling his flesh, thus in them, with that of the outside world, but can marry "ONLY IN THE LORD" (sic, p. 31); and as such members are thus also of "one flesh," and therefore are precluded from inter-marriage, the happy event is reasonably assured, that this new CHURCH OF THE FLESH must be composed of celibates, and will naturally expire with one generation, or sooner.

Pure-minded readers of Bishop Doane's pamphlet, who regard marriage as a bond that binds two willing hearts and lives, cannot but be shocked, at its degradation of that loving estate, to one of Flesh. Nor can they fail to notice, that it treats the marriage in question as prompted only ​by impure motives, or to feel that it recognizes marriage as only a concubinage, raised to social toleration by priestly sanction.

Likewise, those who enjoy the usual Protestant conceptions, of the Spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom, and the Moral requisites of Heirship, must be shocked at the Bishop's degradation of that loving union of Christ and his followers, of which marriage-love is so beautiful a type, into that of a corporeal mingling of bones and flesh, so like his Flesh view of marriage.

But for fully understanding him, and appreciating the argument (?) which Bishop Doane derives from a parallel between his corporeal union of Christ with the Church, and his Flesh one between a husband and his sister-in-law, we need to notice, that his corporeal union is not an immediate one between Christ and Church-members, but is based on the Romish thought—that the Church as an Institution, and distinct from its members, is the Bride, and that its members are related to Christ, the Bridegroom, only by affinity, as a wife's sister is related to the husband—"members of the Church, the Bride, and so members of Christ, the Bridegroom; her kin first, and therefore His, because hers—Surely, again, the woman's kin is near of kin to the man." (sic, p. 15.)

But can it be that the laity of the Prot. Epis. Church of this country, will accept this idea that marriage is a Flesh? Or will they tolerate the dogma, that union with Christ is not one of Heart and Life, but a corporeal one of Flesh and Bones? Or has it come to pass, that High-Church lay-thought is ready for a Romish exaltation of the Church, as an organization dominated by Bishops, to the rank of a Mediatorial-bride, that leaves its lay-members related to Christ only by affinity?

And if not, what mean this "blow" of a marriage-flesh ​"trumpet," and the accompanying notes of a "Flesh and Bone" Churchism? and this proclamation of the Church as a Bride, with a sister-in-law laity following behind? Is it that under the guise of this marriage question, laythought may become familiarized with Romish conceptions? and that a Marriage-flesh may prepare a way to a Church-flesh, and so to Transubstantiation?

And as these questions over-tax our ability, we remit them to those to whom their answers belong.

Note.—If second marriages are allowable "only in the Lord" as Bishop Doane asserts (p. 31), then the Church should discipline its priests and members who have violated such prohibition. If Scriptural prohibitions extend by "parity of reason" to seeming parallels, then the supposed prohibition applies equally to first marriages, and a Church Canon to that effect is demanded, as much as the proposed Table of Prohibited Marriages. If the Bishop's Marriage-flesh be a Sacramental one, which only Church priests can supply, then Civil marriages, and those conducted by irregular Clergy, must lack such Marriage-flesh; and in such cases, the wife's sister and kin are not inoculated by any marriage-flesh, or brought into the supposed fleshship with the husband. If only Church-Marriages are valid, any other one is no bar to a subsequent Church one with a new wife, if the irregular wife be abandoned. If husband and wife are literally one flesh, and that flesh unites their respective kin, and the union of Christ and his followers be also one of Bones and Flesh, then one Church-Member thus made part of Christ, equally unites to Him every relative.

And these and like absurdities, are involved in the Flesh Christianity of our High-Church Bishops.

Let us now return to our Bible, and consider that our accusers do not pretend that it makes out a case against us. This is confessed by their very resort to the Hebrew text; for they have recourse there not to enforce, but to change, and even reverse, the translation given to us. This is clearly true as to v. 18; and even as to v. 6 Bishop Doane flatly admits that the English Bible is with us; for he says "the force of the (his) whole argument from Holy Scripture, turns upon these words 'flesh of his flesh'" (p. 10); and these are his translation of the Hebrew, to be used in the place of "that is near of kin to him" in v. 6 of Lev. xviii.

Standing thus with our Bibles, which the Church has given us for our guidance, all on our side from Gen. i to the Finis of Rev. xxii, we can hurl defiance at our Levitical assailants, and even taunt them, for presuming to use their Hebrew originals for condemning us (even though they should do that); and can fairly bid them hold their zeal against us, until they shall effect an authorized revision in their favor, of the Bible of the common-people of Christendom.

The Tyrant of Syracuse punished innocent subjects for violating unknown laws, and his name has survived as a synonym for Tyranny. But he yielded so much to justice, as to observe its form, by posting his laws on a public column, though too high to be read: And it outdoes Dionysius, to give us an open Bible-law in English, that permits the marriage in question, and then, asserting a secret opposite law in Hebrew, to denounce such marriages, and asperse the parties to them, and their motives, as Bishop Doane's pamphlet does.

With our Bible thus on our side, what right has he to dig out of his Hebrew one, a supposed law against us, ​and on that alone to brand such marriages as against "God's law," and sinful? And what excuse is there for his calling them "incestuous"? And only engaged in torturing Scripture to Ecclesiastical uses, and darkening feeble understandings with Romish "deceits of the flesh," what proud assurance is his, to suggest concerning those whom he assails, that "God shall enlighten their consciences to agree" on a divorce a thoro! (p. 28.)

And occupied in dishonoring parties, whose marriages have civil status equal to any, and social approval beyond others, why, but to degrade them, would he tender the needless mockery of a Church-dispensation, "to shield them from social dishonor, and their children from civil and social disabilities" (p. 29) which he would unwarrantably cast upon them? Aye, more! when grounding his attack on a parallelism of deceased wife's sister with brother's widow, and the fiction of a marriage-flesh, as making each a sister, what boldness against God, to characterize such parties as having "fallen into sin" (p. 29). For has he not read Deut. xxv: 5? And does he not know, that the God of Israel ordered, what he dares to call the sin of marrying brother's widow,—sister, as he would call her? And what will he do to save God also, from the "dishonor" thus put upon Him? Will he forsooth! excuse Him too, because that also, was before he began to "blow the trumpet" of English degrees? And will his tender compassion also reach the God of Israel, because he too did not understand the marriage-flesh mystery, and the equivalence of affinity and kinship?

We know indeed the leniency of his party in excusing this command of God, as only a Ceremonial one—a sort of immoral Canon. But because Ecclesiastics may not heed moral-law, that cannot matter here; for Deut. xxv: 5 was not a Canon issued by Ecclesiasti​cal votes, but a Law, which "the Lord spake unto Moses"; and in denouncing the ordered act as sinful, Bishop Doane, and his party, pronounce God a sinner—against their over-righteousness.

We know too, that he, and his school, assert as an opposite and over-ruling law, that "twice in Leviticus, a man is forbidden to marry his brother's widow; that is, a woman is forbidden to marry her deceased husband's brother (Lev. xviii: 16. and xx: 21)" (p. 15). But let them read those laws as God gave them, and not as they would fain have them; and where they would find a "widow" God shows them a "wife," and a husband to protect himself against a brother's invading his bed (Lev. xviii: 16), or taking her away (Lev. xx: 21). And then let them turn to Deut. xxv: 5, and read God's law that when "brethren dwell together" (favorable to affection for a sister-in-law), if one should die, and leave a childless widow, the surviving brother should take her to wife. And that Bishop Doane, and his compeers, will not recognize the harmony of these congruous laws, but exhalt the authority of Popes and Councils, above this God's Law of Marriage, entitles them to "dishonor," for thus charging God with sin, in ordering marriages that violate their Parker table.

But already we have trespassed too far upon our Part II, and we return to the Dispensation which the Bishop tenders us, from the "dishoner" and "disabilities" which are all his own. And though we would not have him leave his regular pursuits, to advocate a Canon or Law, of "Godless law-makers" (p. 30) for improving our very satisfactory social positions and civil status, we cannot but be grateful for his readiness to compromise with our "sin" on such easy terms. We would also specially commend his discerning admiration of the recommended English law (5 & 6 William IV), that left ​marriages within prohibited degrees of consanguinity voidable, but validated those between relatives by affinity; and thus, instead of regarding consanguinity and affinity as parallel, distinguished widely between them. And if the Bishop's plan be to grant us for nothing, a full Dispensation, such as the "purer" Church used to charge $5,000 for (Code Matrim., t. 1, p. 37), we are free to concede that its price is admirably fitted to its value.

Thus grateful for the Bishop's leniency, we cannot, however, but notice his inconsistency; for if, as he charges, marriage with a deceased wife's sister be a "Sin," and against a "God's Law" revealed in the Bible or nature, it is a guilty compromise with guilt, for the Church to wink at such "Sin," because it has delayed to re-enact God's law into a Church-canon, and its Bishops have only just now lent their "trumpets" to voicing God's thunders.

And that Bishops are so ready to compromise with alleged "impurity" and "licentiousness," because their laches has been contributive to such Guilt, may suggest to many, that "Godless law-makers" who are "tampering perpetually with the laws of marriage, in the interest of licentious people" are not confined to "civil legislatures" (p. 7).

Evidently, such compromises are admissible, only on the theory, that the condemned marriage is not against a "God's law" or "sinful"; but then, how to reconcile Bishop Doane's denunciations and gross attacks, with that theory, Quære.

Since publishing his pamphlet, Bishop Doane has issued a mild disclaimer, in which he admits "unintended injustice" to parties; withdraws an imputation, in original language, of "sensualism"; and says he is "the more ready" to say what he does, because it does not ​affect "the essence of the argument." But he adheres to borrowed language, that attributes the marriage he questions to "impurity" (p. 21), "dishonest passion" (p. 22), "lascivious desire" (sic, p. 21), "licentiousness" (p. 27), and like motives; and to his quotation (author unnamed), that "Passion pleads acutely, and corruption is very dull to see very evident grounds against it" (p. 27); and thus the unsavory "essence of the argument" remains. He disagrees however, with the criticism that such imputations are of "impure feeling"; and says that such language only "refers to the unlawfulness of the act, and not to the character of the motive of the marriage" (sic). That such are Bishop Doane's notions we will not dispute; but it is a mystery to us, though not one of Love, that when only seeking to characterize these marriages as unlawful, he selected borrowed language that imputes them to lust, and italicized the worst of it. That public writers of his class, thus attack adverse opinions, and conscientious acts of others. in methods and terms that villify motives and character, originated and justifies the aphorism, that "Calumny is the Homage which Dogmatism ever pays to Conscience."

It would seem as if the High-church party were anxious in 1877, to have their prohibitory Canon adopted; but no sooner was it passed in the House of Bishops (Oct. 22, 1877) than their success alarmed them; and reconsidering their action, they effected long delay by a Joint-committee reference. At last Convention, they were content with empty denunciation; and now, if Bishop Doane be authority, their tactics are to spend a generation in issuing defamatory pamphlets, and blowing ​marriage-law trumpets, before venturing on canonizing the Parker-table. (The Churchman, Feb. 26th, 1881, p. 229). And this again hints a service to English Bishops as the underlying purpose.

It is also noticeable from this last deliverance of the Bishop, that his "God's law" of Sept., 1880, dwindled by Feb., 1881, to an "Ecclesiastical law"; and he now says it would be "gross injustice to make an ex post facto application, even in thought, of this old law of marriage," "which has been in abeyance since 1805," "until a generation has been taught its principles." Verily, if the Bishop's purpose was other than to serve his English brethren, at the cost of incalculable injuries at home, some new light must have broken in on his ecclesiastical dreams; and we may yet look for a retraction of his "God's law of Marriage," and the substitution of an expurgated edition, entitled "Old Ecclesiastical Law of Marriage, to be Re-Enacted in the 20th Century."

The subject sent to the Committee, concerned the enactment into a Canon, of the English-table of Prohibited Degrees,—never in force in this country, or at most, a "dead letter" here, for a period "whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary." The question was about including, or not, the Degrees of wife's sister, wife's brother's daughter, wife's sister's daughter and "their correlative degrees for the other sex"; and that of wife's sister, is the Degree specially considered in the Majority Report.

1st. That Report mentions the Table's principle, of a parity of affinity with consanguinity, as "a law supposed to ​be based on the Divine precept 'they twain shall be one flesh,' and on the inspired comment 'this is a great mystery'—something that is not to be dissected by cold human reason, but rather accepted by faith as a sacramental verity."

On his own comment "this is a great mystery" (Eph. v: 22) St. Paul, the commentator, comments by adding "but I speak concerning Christ and the church"; and Scott accepts that commentary, saying "This is indeed, says the apostle, a great mystery, I mean the union of Christ and his church; nevertheless, to return to our subject, let every man," &c. (Scott's Family Bible, Phil., 1818.) Some commentators claim indeed, that St. Paul, being unmarried, could not speak of a husband's mysterious love of his wife, and therefore meant to limit his comment to that of Christ for the church. But that view is objectionable, as limiting his "inspired comment" by his uninspired experience.

Bishop Doane seems however to agree with the Majority-report, that the "mystery" is not one of love, which had been St. Paul's theme, and to "be able to comprehend" "the breadth and length and depth and height" of which it was needful to be "rooted and grounded in Love" (Eph. iii: 17, 18); but he resolves the mystery into an unadded, unabsorbed, doubly-shared, new, compound, double, one flesh one; and parades that as also a sort of "sacramental verity," undissectible by "cold human reason."

What sort of a Verity a sacramental one is, we have no idea, except as the concession that it cannot abide the test of Reason, reveals it as a Falsity. But we would venture to make this point—that if the mystery be one that "cold reason" cannot solve, heated unreason can have no valid claim to solve it, as consisting either of an indescribable flesh, or of a principle of parallelism of ​kinship and affinity; and much less to demand, that its heated and unreasonable solution be "accepted by faith." And it is evident, that when reason or unreason, hot or cold, tenders a solution of a mystery, the mystery is abandoned as no longer one, and a solution of it is substituted.

2nd. The Report claims, that the questioned degrees rest upon ancient, continuous and universal interpretation of Holy Scripture; but it forbears to name any of its "great cloud of witnesses" "because no qualified opponent disputes the fact, that such authorities may be quoted in our (their) favor to an almost unlimited extent."

Now the writer has spared no effort to find such authorities, that ante-date the 25 Henry VIIIth Divorce-law; and though such there may be, the "great cloud of witnesses" testify, that until then Prohibited-degrees were only Ecclesiastical; and they prove that the Authority for the English-degrees, and those of first and second cousins, and onward to the 7th degree by affinity, is substantially the same, and must therefore be followed to the full extent, or be rejected as not Authoritative, by "sound churchmanship." And, despite the apparent disregard of the Anglican Bishops and Clergy, who compiled The Speaker's Commentary, as unqualified opponents, that Commentary is now cited to these points: (1st.) It insists that Lev. xviii: 18, "permitted marriage with a deceased wife's sister" (V. 1, p. 601). (2d.) It treats the English law against such marriage, as an "Ecclesiastical rule," and "the arguments drawn from the conditions of Social Life" as its only defence. (Ibid., 602.) (3d.) It answers thus the claim that the Levitical-table is a part of the Moral-law.

"The Fathers in general, most of the Schoolmen, and the Mediæval-church took different ground. They considered that while the great principles of the law of incest must ever be binding upon mankind, the limits to which their application should be carried out, were not absolutely fixed, and might have been determined by Moses with a view to the particular circumstances and condition of the Hebrew nation." Referring to Ecclesiastical prohibitions up to the 7th degree by affinity, it says: "This state of the Ecclesiastical law, along with the abomination of frequent dispensations which it entailed, probably occasioned a reckless revulsion in some minds, of which traces may be seen in the controversy regarding the divorce of Henry VIII. Our Reformers were, perhaps on this account, driven more formally to entrench themselves behind the authority of the text of Leviticus, although they were obliged to supplement it in some particulars, in constructing their own Table for practical use." And the inference is irresistible, that the compilers regarded the wife's sister degree as a supplement.

3rd. On the subject of standing by old degrees, the Report invokes "sound churchmanship;" and says "we are sure that what is contrary to that Holy Word, has never been universally consented to in the Church of Christ."

This principle includes all degrees up to the 7th degree by affinity, as much as the wife's sister degree; and if the latter be carried by "sound churchmanship" the door is open for each and all the others; for, to authorize and require any further degrees, it only becomes needful to prove that they were degrees of the infallible church at any time. Of course unqualified opponents could answer the imperative demand, by the infallible anathema of the Council of Trent, against schismatics who denied the Church's power of selling Dispensations to marry, and by hosts of other infallible contradictions; and they could also urge against the "blessed reformation" as schismatic, and wholly erroneous, this dogma of ecclesiastical infallibility. And thus would arise a "mystery" of inconsistent consistencies, and infallible fallibilities, unsolvable by "cold reason," and to rank as a "sacramental verity" to be "accepted by faith."

​4th. The Report asks—"Is it wise to accept a novel interpretation against such overwhelming testimony?" and says on that subject, even where two expositions are admissible on grounds of mere criticism, we hold that the novel exposition must perish before that of the whole Church for fifteen hundred years."

We are not advised what novel interpretation the Report thus refers to; but (1st) it clearly condemns the novel one of Lev. xviii: 18, as being a law against polygamy; and leaves it as teaching the Mosaic lawfulness of marriage with a deceased wife's sister; and (2nd) it defends the Church's position for fifteen hundred years, that it was rid of Lev. xviii, and therefore had free play for its Ecclesiastical-degrees.

It was not purposed to notice the social bearings of the wife's sister question, because public opinion so commends the marriage; but the Majority-report invites notice of that aspect of it. And to present matters fairly, we give the following extracts:

"Your Committee viewed the proposed changes [of omitting the six disputed degrees from the proposed Canon] in the practical light of the enquiry—How would they operate on existing and time honored institutions? We find that in ultimate analysis they touch the whole fabric of society and introduce a radical change into the constitution of the Christian family." "For one, here and there, who seeks a sister-in-law to wife, there are hundreds who prefer to find in such a relation a sister only. But if you make her the candidate for a possible succession to her sister, as her brother-in-law's second wife, a sister she can be no longer. She can no longer render a sister's services during a long illness to her dying sister, the married wife; and delicacy must lead her to quit the house of her brother-in-law as soon as the wife dies—that is, at the very moment when her services are ordinarily most required. She cannot continue to show a particular and tender interest in her young nephews and nieces without incurring painful suspicion. In such circumstances, as things now are, a sister-in-law becomes the natural and pure source of aid and comfort ​to children, and this is specially true in the homes of the poor. It is said she is therefore the rather eligible as a successor to the deceased. But this idea is founded on the sisterly relation created by the law as it now exists. Change this law; there will be no more sisters-in-law; the wife's sister will be turned out of the family organization, or in violation of feminine propriety, she will remain in it in a very equivocal position, such as compromises a woman in the estimation of her own sex. "In a long illness of the wife, relations are formed and pledges are prematurely interchanged as to prospective marriage, and guilt too commonly ensues. Imagine the condition of a dying woman, who sees such a state of things around her, as she declines into the grave."

1st. The Report thus assumes and asserts (1st) that existing law prevents marriage with deceased wife's sister; (2d) that "society" and the "Christian family" are organized accordingly; and thus, that a continuance of the present state of law and society (which they would change), would be a "radical change."

Surely, the Report reads as if it were from utter strangers to American laws, and Protestant society in this country.^[5] And, puzzled to dissect the "mystery" by "cold reason," we would not do more, and cannot do less, than challenge its assertions above referred to, as contrary to Fact.

2d. As sisters-in-law have been fully eligible to succeed their sisters, the Report directs a charge against each and every one, who has been an inmate of the husband's family, or has ministered to his wife or children in sickness, as having violated "feminine propriety" and compromised herself: And equally, it aims such a charge against each and every (eligible) relative and friend, who has been such an inmate or ministering angel: For the charge is applicable to them no less than to sisters-in-law. And these charges, we denounce as wholly unwar​ranted; and as charges preferred against thousands of sisters-in-law, relatives and friends, who merit, and have, the highest regard in Christian estimation.

3d. A Canon against such marriage, would be saved from effecting unhappy results only by its impotency. For as sisters-in-law are not sisters, but fully eligible to wifehood, the proposed Canon, if heeded, would close up the only available way for a widower to gain, and a sister-in-law to become, the best mother to his motherless children. And thus it is, that the advocates of such a Canon, with a profusion of tears for dying wives, would rob widowers' houses and children of the best class of second wives, and introduce a Church-Sisterhood, with all its dangers, in place of God's ordinance of marriage.

4th. That there are Church circles, whose widowers "prefer by" hundreds to one the "services" of sisters-in-law, in one or another way, to a marriage relation, which demands unselfish love and imposes mutual obligations, the Report does not permit us to doubt—unprincipled widowers who "prefer" sister-in-law ineligibles, whose affections as aunts they can press into the "services" of wives; and who, thus freed from a need of taking mothers to their children, may pursue their selfish pleasures, or worse vices. Nor does the Report hesitate to show a genial sympathy with such widowers, and an utter disregard of the sisters-in-law, on whom it would thus impose the care of mothers and the position of servants. (Our Civil-laws prove that the unjust "hundreds" are but an insignificant few.)

So, hundreds of Slave-holders preferred the forced "services" of fellow men with darker skins, to one who recognized their natural rights; and Joint-Committees ​defended the "time-honored" iniquity, and besought their gods to "enlighten the consciences and touch the hearts" (p. 28) of philanthropists, to see the beneficence of Slavery, in bringing the benighted races of Africa under a church-dispensation, that would let them sing doxologies beyond Jordon, when the appointed "services" were over.

But when High-churchmen of every sect, were intoning their prayers to gods that "make for unrighteousness," and were joining, north and south, in antiphonal praises to the "peculiar institution", philanthropists were following a profounder faith than narrow creeds formulated, and a "higher law" than Medieval Councils had written; and a time came when the tears and blood of the oppressed, that had exhaled to Heaven, and been charged with its lightning, clouded the land, and amid the thunders of war, was heard the Proclamation of Freedom to the Captive.

So too, the 11 to 1 English Bishops, and their 24 to 20 American allies, heed only the 100 to 1 selfish and unscrupulous widowers who prefer sister-in-law "services" to wives; and contemn the natural rights of sisters-in-law, and of loving and just widowers, who would seek them as wives, and not as servants. But the prayers of English women (42,500 from Leeds alone) for the freedom of sisters-in-law from "services" to heartless widowers, are heard there by Christians of all sects and none; and long before a sister-in-law Sisterhood shall be instituted here, England will have expunged the wrong.

5th. The Report recognizes a Church "society" and nominal "Christian family," so vile that a woman who is eligible to succeed a wife, cannot be an inmate of the family, or minister to the wife in sickness, without danger of arousing the husband's lust, and the wife's jealousy; and in view of such authority, we cannot dispute the fact.

​Nor is it strange that such evils are found, where Church-sisters are offered as substitutes for wives; marriage taught as a Flesh, and attributed to Lust, instead of Love; obscenities of vulgar celibates published as saintly instruction; and ecclesiastical laws that corrupted Europe for centuries and "made society putrid," taught as "God's Law of Marriage." Whether the proper remedy be a Sisterhood of Ineligibles, is doubtful however; and a Reformation, in which Christian morality shall have precedence of Church-Authority, would seem more appropriate.

But that is a question for others; and it becomes us only to insist, that if the Church requires an Order of Nuns for attending the sick wives of its "Society," the Sisterhood should be composed of volunteers, who are ready thus to peril their reputations and virtue; and that it is unjust to force sisters-in-law into such "services."

6th. Clearly, this principle of the Report, and rule of its contemplated society—that women eligible to wifehood are excluded from its families, and from ministering to their sick needs—applies as well to cousins and friends as to sisters-in-law; for what virtue and propriety forbid to a sister-in-law, is as much or more forbidden to cousins and friends. Indeed, whether the available ministering angels be sisters-in-law or cousins, is a matter of circumstance; and they are more likely to be cousins than sisters-in-law, for the former are usually more numerous and nearer at hand. Therefore, any Canon of ineligibility, for the relief of wives in such dissolute circles, should be based on principle, and not on accidents of circumstance; and should extend to all who visit the family of the licentious husband, or minister to the needs of his wife or children.

But though we cannot question the picture which the Report draws of its "Society," we cannot close this subject without protesting on behalf of all respectable society, and all virtuous women, in the Church and out of it, that such picture is not true of it or them; and as in the past no loving and estimable sister-in-law, cousin or friend, ever withheld herself from a sick or dying wife, because forsooth, a debased "society" might impute to her unworthy motives, so despite Bishop Doane's pamphlet, and the Majority-report, no woman, worthy of such a christian duty, ever will neglect it for such a cause, or have a thought of exposure to prurient suspicion, except to spurn it.

Without doubt, Marriage is natural—a Divine institution; and Nature forbids it only with near blood-kin. (The Maj. Report admits that any "sisterly relation," in case of wife's sister, is one that needs to be "created by law"—is not natural.) And Christ, and his Gospel, left it equally free. But "forbidding to marry" is a "doctrine of devils" which "seducing spirits" (I Tim. iv: 1–3) early taught; and as these gained power, and assumed control of marriages, they multiplied restraints, and for over a thousand years, thus debauched the Morals of the Christian world. The remedy for the evils thus inflicted, was the rescue of marriages from Ecclesiastical control, and ​their restoration to that Freedom, which Nature and the Gospel recognize, as the best guaranty to Virtue. That remedy was early adopted in this Country, and has been largely pursued by other nations, and always with beneficent results.

The general course of legislation in the United States, has been to follow Nature's law; and prohibiting sexual commerce between parent and issue, and between brother and sister, to leave marriage not thus made incestuous, optional and free. It is indeed true, that within this wide range of lawful marriages, various physiological, social, and moral questions may arise. But these depend upon various circumstances, each on its own; and instead of being regulated by rigid law (civil or church) they may safely be left, where Nature and Christ left them, to be governed by individual Judgment, guided by broad Christian principles, and the conservative influences of Public-opinion.

To this Civil control of marriages, and such Civil-law, the Am. Prot. Epis. Church has until lately yielded its practical assent; and why its High-Church Bishops, have sought to array it against the State and public opinion, they leave open to speculation. Certainly, they complain of no Moral harm, that our Marriage-system effects; and there is none. Indeed, what they have to suggest, is only their want of a Sisterhood of nurses and housekeepers, in a favorite but narrow circle, and such petty considerations, as that a sister-in-law, as eligible to become wife, cannot "show a particular and tender interest in her young nephews and nieces without incurring painful suspicion" (probably of manoeuvreing for the widower). But these are not moral evils of Marriage-freedom; and such reasons for "forbidding to marry," whatever their weight in General Convention, must fail to commend a wife's sister restriction to an intelligent public.

​The aim of what follows (Part II) is to show that Lev. xviii, upon which the proposed Canon largely depends, does not restrict Marriage-freedom; and to that more congenial work, attention is now invited.