Note 299 — Chapter XI · HISTORY OF SEPARATION AND DIVORCE UNDER ENGLISH AND ECCLESIASTICAL LAW (continued 2)

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.