Such remained the state of the law until the appearance of Lord Lyndhurst's act in 1835.[284] This statute declares, because "it is unreasonable that the state and condition of the children of marriages between persons within the prohibited degrees of affinity should remain unsettled during so long a period" as the joint lives of the parents, therefore "all marriages which may hereafter be celebrated between persons within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity or affinity" ought to "be _ipso facto_ void, and not merely voidable;" and accordingly it is so enacted. With respect to existing unions of this kind a distinction is made between "affinity" and "consanguinity." Marriages within the forbidden degrees of affinity already celebrated may not "hereafter be annulled for that cause by any sentence of the ecclesiastical court," unless pronounced in a pending suit; while existing marriages within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity are not so exempt.[285] Voidable wedlock in the sense here employed[286] thus disappears from the English law, except in those minor cases where "canonical" impediments are still recognized.[287] [Footnote 284: 5 and 6 W. IV., c. 54; also in HAMMICK, _Marriage Law_, 281. Compare HANSARD'S _Parl. Debates_, 3d series, XXXVIII, 203-7; XXX, 661, 662. In general, see GEARY, _op. cit._, 10, 11, 32; BURN, _Ecc. Law_, II, 501_c_-501_e_; HAMMICK, _op. cit._, 32, 33, 23; ERNST, _Marriage and Divorce_, 183, 184; LUCKOCK, _Hist. of Marriage_, 300-307; JEAFFRESON, _op. cit._, II, 264-66; BISHOP, _Marriage, Divorce, and Separation_, I, §§ 288, 289, 753; _Tracts Issued by the Mar. Law Defence Union_, II, 91-104. The act extends to Ireland. "By the law of Scotland the distinction between void and voidable marriages was never recognized, all marriages within the prohibited degrees being void _ab initio_."--HAMMICK, _op. cit._, 33 n. _a._] [Footnote 285: This liberal exception, mainly in favor of existing unions with a deceased wife's sister, is of course denounced by writers such as LUCKOCK, _op. cit._, 305, as a "mischievous concession and compromise principle."] [Footnote 286: For the special senses in which the term is used see the discussion of BISHOP, _op. cit._, I, §§ 252-92, already cited.] [Footnote 287: The only surviving canonical impediment for which a marriage may be voidable, but not void, is impotence. The same principle is also applied to marriages secured by force: GEARY, _op. cit._, 34, 203 ff., 212; HAMMICK, _Marriage Law_, 48, 49.]