1883.] Rational Marriage-Law. 585 
they have made not the slightest effort : none of the speeches 
made in Parliament or elsewhere against the Deceased Wife’s 
Sister’s Bill, none of the advertised publications of the 
Marriage-Law Defence Union,” seek to show that such 
marriages have had, or are even likely to have, any effects 
hurtful to the individual or to the race. The list of patrons, 
vice-presidents, and committee-men which they publish 
contains the names of many persons of consideration, — 
prelates, peers, judges, members of parliament, military and 
naval officers, but not medical or physiological authorities. 
This seems to us a token that the Union ignore the only 
kind of argument which we can accept. The publications 
or tradts which they advertise, and which from their prices 
are evidently intended for distribution, contain in like man- 
ner the opinions of eminent lawyers, statesmen, and ecclesi- 
astics, — a class of evidence which we must set aside as 
totally -irrelevant. “ What the Bishop of London says,” 
“ what Scotchmen say,” “ what the Roman Catholic Church - 
says,” &c., is all beside the question, and can merely serve 
to divert public attention into a wrong channel. Those in- 
deed who, tacitly at least, sanction the intermarriage of 
cousins, demonstrably injurious, and yet hesitate about or 
oppose the Deceased Wife’s Sisters Bill, are indeed straining 
at the gnat after swallowing the camel. 
A rational table of “ prohibited degrees,” based upon the 
results of modern Science, might be drawn up in very brief 
compass. It would simply enadt that no intermarriage 
might take place between descendants of the same father, 
mother, or both, between descendants of the same grand- 
father, grandmother, or both, and between descendants of 
the same great-grandfather, great-grandmother, or of both. 
This would bar all unions between blood-relations as far as 
second cousins inclusive, whilst all cases of mere affinity 
would be excluded from its operation. 
Still this table would not complete the Marriage-Law of 
the Future. It must, in addition, contain stipulations 
against marriages being contracted not merely when the 
parties are below , but also above, a certain age, — a point 
upon which the laws of all nations have hitherto been silent, 
but which, if Mr. Francis Galton’s art of “ eugenics ” is 
ever to become a reality, will also have to be taken into 
consideration in mankind as it is in the more valuable 
domestic animals. 
Those in whom chronic disease or insanity is manifest 
will likewise be recognised as unfit for marriage. 
VOL. V. (THIRD SERIES.) 2 Q 
