Note 319 — Chapter XXXV · TWO LITTLE WARS AND A “PENAL DISSOLUTION.”

That no such distinction should be made is the view which seems to be gaining ground now. The French Chamber adopted it in their Divorce Bill of 1886, and it has been adopted in the law of Scotland, where, as in France, paramours are not permitted to marry after divorce is granted. In England the marriage of paramours, outside the forbidden degrees of affinity and consanguinity, strongly condemned by Bishop Wilberforce in the debates on the Divorce Bill, is permissible. Though, as a concession to Wilberforce and his followers, it was enacted that a clergyman might refuse to perform the ceremony, the concession did not satisfy anybody.—See Life of Wilberforce, Vol. II., pp. 343-347.