[Footnote 299: HANSARD, 3d series, CCLXXX, 1675. This was Lord Hatherley: see _Tracts Issued by Mar. Law Defence Union_, II, 161, 162, where he repeats the statement. Compare the views of the bishop of Exeter, in the same _Tracts_, I, 19, who predicts an orgy of incest if the law be changed: "At the present, no doubt, there is a strong natural instinct against the marriage of a man with his own mother. It is awful to think of. The marriage of a man with his own blood sister is fearful. But this instinctive protection of our domestic purity, how far does it go if we begin to pare the edges off." The Metropolitan (1880) indulges in like forebodings: _ibid._, I, 97, 98.] [Footnote 300: LECKY, _Democracy and Liberty_, II, 221-23.] _c_) _Parliamentary divorce._--More than twenty years were yet to pass before the appearance of the first English statute providing for divorce through regular civil process. Proximately the act of 1857 owes its origin to the anomaly of parliamentary divorce, whose glaring inconsistency but served to accent the evils fostered by the canons of 1603. In theory marriage continued to be absolutely indissoluble. Only by giving bond not to marry again could a person secure even a judicial separation. No matter how grave the offense, or how notorious the breach of the nuptial vow, the parties in most legal respects were chained for life. At most they might be suffered to dwell apart. Obviously the proper remedy would have been a general law of civil divorce whose benefits should be placed within the easy reach of rich and poor alike. Instead, a resort was had to special acts of Parliament whose advantages could be enjoyed only by a fortunate class.[301] The practice originated in the last years of the seventeenth century, though it may have been suggested by prior instances of legislative intervention in matrimonial questions. As early as 1436 a marriage obtained by force was declared void.[302] More clearly analogous is the opposite case of Lord Northampton, already mentioned, whose second marriage after decree of separation was pronounced valid in 1552. This, however, is not an instance of parliamentary divorce.[303] Nor, strictly speaking, is that of Lord Roos in 1670, which Macqueen regards as the first "genuine example;" for the bill is entitled merely "an act for John Manners, called Lord Roos, to marry again;" and does not as alleged expressly effect a "rescission of the contract."[304] The earliest clear precedents are the case of the Earl of Macclesfield in 1698 and that of the Duke of Norfolk, two years later, in each of which the act provides for a dissolution of marriage.[305] Ultimately (1798) a standing order of the House of Lords requires that "all bills of divorce shall be preceded by a sentence of separation _a mensa_, issuing out of the ecclesiastical court;"[306] and usually such bills must be preceded also by the action at law