Page:Remarksonlawreg00haywgoog.djvu/10

 &c.

question regarding marriage with the sister of a deceased wife, has been recently discussed with great learning and ingenuity; but the most important fact brought to light, is the extent of the evil resulting from the present condition of the law. Lord Wharncliffe distinctly pledged himself to prove "not that there are many hundred cases, but that there are thousands of such marriages, which have been contracted since 1835;" in other words, that there are thousands of families unnecessarily exposed to great wretchedness; and the number is notoriously on the increase. It may be as well to explain at once how this, has come to pass since 1835.

Prior to an Act (5 & 6 Will. 4, c. 54) passed in that year, a marriage within the Levitical degrees was not void, but voidable: i. e. it might