Page:Marriage with a deceased wife s sister.pdf/11

6 statutes in England, I find very great difficulty in ascertaining precisely what it really is. The judges are not agreed upon the subject. In the only important decision that has been given upon it, we have two eminent judges upon the one side against two eminent judges upon the other: and certainly it is a matter which should be removed from all possible doubt. The leading case, that of Brook against Brook, was the case of two English people who went to Denmark and availed themselves of the law there for the purpose of getting married, they being a man and his deceased wife’s sister. Upon that case coming before the Court, the Court agreed unanimously that the marriage was void, because the parties were domiciled in England, and being domiciled in England could not make their marriage valid in England by visiting a country where the marriage was allowed. Everybody was agreed upon that. But upon the question of whether the marriage would have been valid in England had the parties been domiciled in Denmark there was a difference of opinion. Sir Cresswell Cresswell and Lord Wensleydale, both eminent judges, said the marriage would have been void in England anyhow, and they appear to have proceeded upon the principle that although by the comity of nations the lex loci contractûs should govern matters of this kind, yet at the same time it was not to legalise in any country laws which sanctioned incest in other countries. That appears to have been substantially the view taken by Sir Cresswell Cresswell and by Lord Wensleydale, who arrived at the conclusion that although the parties had been domiciled in Denmark, still the marriage would have been void in England. The Courts decided that the marriage was void. As far as Lord Wensleydale’s opinion on the other question was concerned, and as far as the opinion