Facts.

Fact 1. Marriage with a wife's sister is expressly legislated for in Leviticus xviii. 18, and there the prohibition is strictly limited to the lifetime of the Wife.

Fact 2. The Jews, to whom, in their own language, the sacred oracles were given, have always understood this marriage to be permitted by Leviticus xviii. 18, and set a special mark of approbation on such unions, by allowing them to take place when there are young children, within a shorter interval after the death of the wife than in ordinary cases.

Fact 3. This marriage was never prohibited by the laws of any country in the world before the fourth century of the Christian era.

Fact 4. None of the six General Councils, held between A.D. 325 and A.D. 680, condemned this marriage.

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Fact 5. During the first 500 years of the Christian era this marriage was condemned by only one Provincial Council, that of Eliberis in Spain, composed of 19 Bishops. This council also forbade tapers to be lighted in cemeteries in the daytime, that the spirits of the Saints might not be disturbed, and required Bishops, Priests, and Deacons to live apart from their wives!

Fact 6. The Roman Catholic Church does not regard this marriage as forbidden in Scripture.

Fact 7. Protestant Dissenters regard the prohibition of this marriage as unscriptural and inexpedient, the Deputies of the Three Denominations having repeatedly petitioned Parliament for its removal. Fact 8. This marriage may be lawfully celebrated in every country in the world except Great Britain and Ireland, and those British Colonies settled since J 835, the prohibition having been recently removed, or increased facilities granted, in one American, and thirty Continental States.

Fact 9. In Canada such marriages have been judicially declared valid.

Fact 10. At the Cape of Good Hope such marriages are valid if celebrated under dispensation from the Governor.

Fact 11. Neither in this nor in any other country has it been shown that the permission of this marriage has been attended with injurious consequences; but, on the contrary, its beneficial effects have been recognized by the most learned and religious men in the countries where it prevails.

Fact 12. This marriage was virtually permitted in this country before 1835, its absolute prohibition being a recent innovation, dating only from that year. Fact 13. No complaint was made of the operation of the law as it stood from the Reformation to 1835.

Fact 14. The Act of 1835 was an unjustifiable compromise, the majority of the House of Commons consenting, contrary to their convictions, to the future prohibition of marriage with a deceased wife's sister, as the means of confirming the marriage of a noble duke.

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Fact 15. The Bench of Bishops on that occasion consented to legalize marriages with a deceased wife's sister previously celebrated—a measure to which it was impossible they should have assented had they believed the marriage contrary to the Word of God.

Fact 16. The Royal Commissioners on the Law of Marriage declare that the Act of 1835 has not secured the respect or obedience of society.

Fact 17. Thousands of such marriages have been contracted; they are found in every town and neighbourhood in the kingdom.

Fact 18. 102 cases of such marriages have been discovered to have existed in the united parishes of St. Margaret and St. John, Westminster, contrary to the assertion publicly made that only two or three cases existed there.

Fact 19. Society, almost without exception, regards persons so united as rightly married, and worthy of respect, and in so doing condemns the law which declares their marriage void.

Fact 20. Twenty-six Spiritual Peers, including two Archbishops, have declared it to be their opinion that there is no Scriptural prohibition of these marriages.

Fact 21. Very many clergymen of the Church of England have declared their conviction of the Scriptural lawfulness of such marriages; more than 400 of the metropolitan clergy having petitioned for their legalization.

Fact 22. The House of Commons on 61 occasions (commencing with 1835, before any public discussion upon the marriage question had taken place), have voted for repealing the existing law. The second reading was carried, on the 21st April, 1869, by 243 to 144—a majority of 99.

Fact 23. Last August, Her Majesty's Government, after 6 refusals, gave the Royal assent to a Bill for legalizing such marriages, passed by the South Australian Legislature.