Transcribed from the 1869 James Parker and Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org Marriage with a Deceased Wife’s Sister. * * * * * LEVITICUS XVIII. 18, CONSIDERED IN CONNECTION WITH THE LAW OF THE LEVIRATE. * * * * * A LETTER TO THE RIGHT HON. THE LORD HATHERLEY, LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND, &c„ &c, &c. BY M. W. MAYOW, M.A., RECTOR OF SOUTH HEIGHTON CUM TARRING NEVILLE, SUSSEX, AND LATE STUDENT OF CH. CH., OXFORD. * * * * * Second Edition. * * * * * London and Oxford: JAMES PARKER AND CO. Brighton: G. WAKELING. 1869. * * * * * BRIGHTON: G. WAKELING, PRINTER, NORTH STREET. * * * * * Marriage with a Deceased Wife’s Sister. A LETTER TO THE RIGHT HON. THE LORD HATHERLEY, _Lord High Chancellor of England_, _&c._, _&c._, _&c._ * * * * * MY LORD, The deep interest which for a long period you have taken in preserving intact our Table of Degrees as to prohibited marriages, will, I hope, sufficiently account for my wish to address the following remarks to your Lordship, and your unvarying kindness will no less account for the ready permission which you have given me to do so. I will not take up any time in preface further than just to observe that of course you are not in any way responsible for the views or the argument of the ensuing pages, though I am, I hope, justified in believing that, whatever be their imperfections, the object at which they aim will meet with your sympathy and approval. My earnest and anxious wish is to do what I may, God helping me, to aid in averting what I feel would be a grievous sin if our marriage law were altered in the sense desired by the promoters of the Wife’s Sister’s Marriage Bill. I do not purpose to go over the whole ground which has been so often contested, (to do which would be almost an impertinence in remarks addressed to your Lordship), but rather to confine my observations to the Scriptural argument, or, perhaps I should say, to a portion of the Scriptural argument against the change proposed, viz.—to the due sense and application of the 18th verse of the xviii. chapter of Leviticus.