722 



DECEMBER 



the interpretation of this text has given rise to 

 diversity of opinion. The better opinion is that the 

 prohibition refers only to marriage during the life- 

 time of the wife ; and, in particular, this view of 

 the text has been taken by the most learned Jewish 

 rabbis. In the Book of Deuteronomy the Jewish 

 law seems to have allowed and even commanded 

 the marriage of a woman with her deceased, hus- 

 band's brother (Deut. xxv. 5), and it seems hardly 

 reasonable to suppose that the one should be 

 permitted and the other prohibited. 



It should be noted that there is no distinct 

 reference to this subject in the New Testament, it 

 being generally admitted that the words of our 

 Lord, ' And they twain shall be one flesh ' ( Matt. 

 xix. 5 ), in reference to husband and wife, are used 

 in a metaphorical sense. 



The principal arguments (leaving out of view the 

 Question of scriptural authority ) adduced by those 

 in favour of repealing the law are as follows : That 

 on grounds of social expediency such marriages are 

 to be approved. They are desired by the poorer 

 classes generally, amongst whom they are of fre- 

 quent occurrence. When a law is out of harmony 

 with the manners and feelings of a people it should 

 be abolished. Secondly, it would, as a rule, be a 

 benefit to the children of a wife who has died when 

 they are in tender years to have their maternal 

 aunt taking the place of mother to them, rather 

 than a stranger. Naturally she would be least 

 likely to act the cruel stepmother. Thirdly, the 

 present state of the law inflicts a wrong on the 

 offspring of such marriages, by their being thereby 

 deprived of their rights of inheritance, and this 

 more particularly in the case of poor parents who 

 cannot afford to shift their domicile ( an easy matter 

 for the rich ) to the Continent, or one of the colonies. 

 Further, it may happen, in the present state of the 

 law, that one who has been long i-esident and legally 

 married in one of our colonies, and has returned to 

 settle in Great Britain, may find his children 

 bastardised. In regard to this, the late Lord 

 Cairns has observed : ' If a man, being domiciled in 

 a colony in which it is lawful to marry his deceased 

 wife's sister, do marry her, his marriage will be good 

 all the world over ; whereas if a domiciled English- 

 man, merely resident in such colony, do so marry, 

 his marriage will be bad everywhere.' Finally, 

 experience is in favour of such marriages, for it is 

 said that in other countries where the repeal of the 

 law in question has taken place nothing but good 

 has resulted. 



This latter assertion is denied by the upholders 

 of the law, who further assert that by maintaining 

 the law in its present state the unity of conjugal 

 life is cherished, the circle of sisterhood is enlarged, 

 and the growth of domestic intimacy between allied 

 families promoted, which could not be the case were 

 such unions possible. Many, too, have affirmed their 

 belief that by making this change in our marriage 

 laws other changes of a more sweeping nature would 

 be sure to follow ( as in the case of Germany ), and 

 the sanctity of the marriage tie be thereby dis- 

 turbed. But this, which is styled the thin-end-of- 

 the- wedge argument, ignores the fact that prior to 

 1835 such marriages were in England not uncom- 

 mon, and that not more than one per cent, were set 

 aside by the ecclesiastical courts. 



December, the last month of the year. In 

 the old Roman calendar, before the time of Julius 

 Caesar, the year began with March, and that which 

 is now the twelfth was then the tenth month ; hence 

 the name ( decem, ' ten ' ). Our Saxon ancestors 

 called it Mid-winter-month and Yule-month. 



Decemvirs, the ten men appointed to codify 

 the law, both public and private, at Rome. Com- 

 missioners were first sent to Greece to study the 



Greek statute law, and on their return (302 B.C.) 

 all the magistracies were suspended, and a com- 

 mission of ten patricians (decemviri legibus scri- 

 bendis) appointed with consular powers to reduce 

 the laws to writing. By the end of the next year 

 the code was finished, and after being ratified by 

 the comitia of the centuries, was erected in the 

 Forum inscribed on ten tables of wood. Next 

 year the d'ecemvirate was renewed, and the result 

 of their deliberations was to add two other sup- 

 plemental tables, from which the whole code bore 

 its official title of the laws of the Twelve Tables 

 (q.v. ). The president of both the decemvirates 

 was the notorious Appius Claudius (q.v.). 



Deception Island, a volcanic island belong- 

 ing to the South Shetland group in the Antarctic 

 Ocean, directly south of Cape Horn. Amidst its 

 ice-covered rocks lies a crater-lake, 5 miles in 

 circumference, surrounded by hot springs. 



DecidUOUS Trees ( Lat. de, and cado, ' falling 

 oft'') are those which annually lose and renew their 

 leaves. In cold and temperate countries the fall of 

 the leaf in autumn, and the restoration of verdure 

 to the woods in spring, are among the most familiar 

 phenomena of nature, connecting themselves also 

 very intimately with the feelings, habits, and cir- 

 cumstances of mankind. The greater part of the 

 trees and shrubs of temperate regions are decid- 

 uous ; but within the tropics the forest retains 

 always its luxuriance of foliage, except in countries 

 where the dry season is extremely marked. There 

 many trees lose their leaves in the dry season, and 

 exhibit the same partial suspension of vegetative 

 life. Trees not deciduous are called Evergreen 

 (q.v.). The means of disarticulation of deciduous 

 leaves is described under LEAF. 



Decimal Fractions (Lat. Secern, 'ten') are 

 such as have for their denominator any of the 

 numbers 10, 100, 1000, &c. i.e. any power of ten 

 (see FRACTION). Thus, &, ffo> T JS^, are decimal 

 fractions. In writing these the denominator is 

 conventionally omitted, and the fractions expressed 

 thus : 0'7 or '7, '23, '019. That these numbers do 

 not express integers is intimated by the point to the 

 left; and the denominator is always 1, with as 

 many ciphers annexed as there are figures in the 

 decimal. In the third example a cipher is pre- 

 fixed to 19, because otherwise it would read as if it 

 stood for T Vu. The expression 5 '647 is read, Five 

 pounds and 647 -thousandths of a pound ; or, Five 

 pounds, and six-tenths, four-hundredths, and seven- 

 thousandths of a pound. That these two readings 

 are equivalent appears from this, that -iVA = iVA 

 + i-Hir + nfinr = A + rT + roW It thus appears 

 that the first figure of a decimal to the right or the 

 point expresses tenths of the unit ; the second, 

 hundredths ; the third, thousandths, &c. In this 

 property lies the great advantage of decimal 

 fractions ; they form merely a continuation of the 

 system of notation for integers, and undergo the 

 common operations of addition, multiplication, &c., 

 exactly as integers do. To explain the principles 

 which determine the position of the decimal point 

 after these operations belongs to a treatise on 

 arithmetic. 



The disadvantage attending decimal fractions is, 

 that comparatively few fractional quantities or 

 remainders can be exactly expressed by them ; in 

 other words, the greater number of common frac- 

 tions cannot be reduced, as it is called, to decimal 

 fractions, without leaving a remainder. Common 

 fractions, such as i, f, , ?, fa, for instance, can 

 be reduced to decimal fractions only by multi- 

 plying the numerator and denominator of each by 

 such a number as Avill convert the denominator 

 into 10, or 100, 1000, &c. (The common process 

 is merely an abridgment of this.) But that ia 



