In fact, he doesn`t have to be actually dead, only legally dead, if he is missing for a certain number of years, you can be declared legally dead, if he comes back after that period, he can marry his widowed sister. However, when I come to the second question, my perplexity begins. Is it appropriate in the interest of national morality to pass this law? If he could be identified as the most Reverend Primate certainly believes that this is possible, that physiological science offers a valid objection to the unions whose legalization is proposed by this bill, I would have to recognize a valid reason to oppose the proposal. And more than that, I should remember that I had received a very valuable light on Christian morality in relation to this particular question. This topic of physiological or eugenic orientation of the question is new to most of us. This is an issue of the utmost importance. The noble and learned gentleman brushed it aside with the remark that science is also familiar with superstition. But in the realm of religion, where superstition is not unknown, superstition is almost always the exaggeration of an important truth. And the question that your Lordship House must examine most carefully is whether there is a kernel of truth behind the very general impression that there are eugenic or physiological objections to these marriages, ignorance of which would be contrary to the interests of the community. The question was, “Is it legal for a man in California to marry his widow`s sister?” It is not possible for a deceased person to marry, but this answer was not an option. The choices were “Yes”, “No” and “I don`t know”.
Probably, if she married a stranger, is there something very terrible about it? I do not understand what it is. The suggestion that congenital weakness is amplified and multiplied in this way? I don`t know why you should assume that there is a congenital weakness at all. In the same way, innate genius could be added. Currently, cousins are allowed to marry and, as far as I know, no one has ever objected. We simply want to eliminate a real grievance that arises in the case of a woman who is unable to blame her children for her sister. That`s the only thing we want to change, and that`s what we`re dealing with. Well, if we get so technical about what it means to “get married,” it could also mean that he performed the ceremony (in the scenario you described, or as a zombie). Or, if we allow arranged marriages, he arranged his sister-in-law`s marriage before her death; Or my favorite, which keeps the spirit of the question going: His will determined who his wife`s sister should marry after his death. 🙂 I know sometimes people reveal too much or even provide the answer, but if you`re worried about it, don`t read them until you find your own answer. So I said “yes” for that reason: for something to be illegal, there has to be a law against it.
Since there is no law prohibiting a deceased person from marrying his sister-in-law, it must be at least technically legal. But the correct answer was “no.” If a man has a widow, then he must be dead, so there is no real legal problem. He could marry his widow`s sister if he faked his own death, but then he would be a bigamist and a cheater, so it wouldn`t be legal. As far as I am concerned – and I hope as far as the ordinary person is concerned – I am prepared to rely on our experience with the marriage law concerning the sister of the deceased woman. This law was persistently and successfully challenged for many years, mainly on the grounds that it would destroy the harmony of married life. Will anyone have the courage to stand up now and claim that the objections raised at that time were justified? I would even go so far as to say so. I do not believe that any legislation in recent years has warranted its passage more than the one I am talking about. I will give what I think is a compelling example of the veracity of what I am saying. At present, a perfect divorce is underway; So much so that the noble and erudite gentleman on the wool bag had to pay attention, and the octogenarian judges were dragged out of retirement to cope with the ever-increasing tide of these cases. I read today in the paper that in just one year, between 1918 and 1919, the number increased by no less than 114 per cent, 810 and they continue to increase in an even greater proportion.
It is a most surprising and, in my opinion, convincing fact – or should be – that this has happened. I can understand that in no case where a man married the sister of his late wife was he involved in this procedure. They could not have had a more convincing testimony to the value of the law than this fact. Damn it to your outdated necrophiliac schedule! If a woman wants to marry a corpse, who are you to say it can`t be? If a man can be baptized after death and father a child after death, he should have the right to marry even after death. If elected, I would enact laws that would expand the definition of marriage to cover ALL romantic unions, whether animate or inanimate. Gentlemen, I will not delay you for long, but I would like to inform you of the government`s position on this bill. Whether or not marriage to the widow of a deceased brother should be permitted is a question that we believe should be left to the absolute judgment of Parliament. When this law was introduced elsewhere, amendments were proposed by the government to ensure that the widow of the deceased brother would be in exactly the same situation as the deceased woman`s sister with regard to the deceased woman`s law. We believe that, if Parliament deems it appropriate to sanction marriage to the widow of a deceased brother, it is necessary to maintain the right in exactly the same situation as that provided for the sister of the deceased woman. Marriage Act. § There are, in my opinion, three coherent, coherent and logical positions that you can take on this issue. that the bar should simply be the bar of blood relations and nothing else.
No one is currently suggesting – the noble gentleman did not suggest – that mother-in-law or daughter-in-law be included, and I assume that at present no one is advocating removing the reference limit altogether. But if you want to do that, you have to ask yourself: why do you draw a certain line through the degrees and say to yourself, “Beyond that, you must not go”? I am thinking of what has been said many times in the debates to which I have referred. Who wants to marry her late husband`s brother? Women do not want the right to 818 and it must therefore be granted for logical reasons and not in response to a request. § How does the bill meet any of these three requirements? The noble. Lord said that fourteen years had passed since the law on marriage of the late woman`s sister became law, and that it was ample time to consider the matter. There is a lot of time left, gentlemen, and what happened during that time? Have we been familiar with the pressure to make this particular change in those fourteen years? The fact that in those years no public request has been made for this bill seems to me to be exactly the opposite of what the noble Lord is looking at. The debate in this case is indispensable — I mean at the time of the passage of the law and not generally outside the debate — because of the very thing that the noble gentleman pointed out, which is considered plausible and not real — the alleged identity of this case with the case of marriage to the sister of a deceased woman. Gentlemen, this is a bill proposing a minor amendment to the Marriage Act that is already in force in many parts of the British Empire, in most states of America and in most countries on the European continent. Amended to some extent by amendments tabled by the Home Office Representative in the House of Commons.