Sin, Sanctity and the Sister-in-Law: Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister in the Nineteenth Century

by David Barrie

Overview

This is the first book specifically devoted to exploring one of the longest-running controversies in nineteenth-century Britain – the sixty-five-year campaign to legalise marriage between a man and his deceased wife’s sister. The issue captured the political, religious and literary imagination of the United Kingdom. It provoked huge parliamentary and religious debate and aroused national, ecclesiastical and sexual passions. The campaign to legalise such unions, and the widespread opposition it provoked, spoke to issues not just of incest, sex and the family, but also to national identity and political and religious governance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367587451
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/30/2020
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

David G. Barrie is Associate Professor of History at The University of Western Australia. He is series editor of Palgrave Histories of Policing, Punishment and Justice. His recent publications include (with Susan Broomhall) Police Courts in Nineteenth-Century Scotland, in two volumes (Farnham, 2014).

Table of Contents

List of tables and figures ix

Abbreviations x

Acknowledgements xi

Introduction 1

Contexts, themes and debates 3

Print culture and parameters 12

1 'A Passage in Our History which We Could not Look Back Upon without Shame': The roots of discontent, c.1835-48 24

Introduction 24

Lord Lyndhurst's 1835 Marriage Act and its origins and legacy 24

'No Commission had Ever Produced a Report on Evidence so Unsatisfactory': the 1847-8 Report into the Law of Marriage 30

The Lord Advocate and mores of Scotland 33

Conclusion 39

2 Restraining the 'Devil in Our Sisters': James Wortley's Marriage Affinity Bills and the Scottish response, 1849-51 47

Introduction 47

'Screwing Scotland to a Compliance with England' 47

The national mood, 'the Men of Glasgow and the Women of Scotland' 50

Platforms and the press 55

Parliamentary resistance 60

Conclusion 63

3 The 'Misery of Scotch Law': Political discourses, legal precedents and cultural representations, c.1851-69 71

Introduction 71

The Marriage Law Reform and Marriage Law Defence Associations 71

Cross-border marriages and the problem of Scotland 74

The quest for uniformity 78

Conclusion 81

4 'Sleeping While the Enemy is Busy Sowing His Tares': The challenge to scripture, c.1851-88 86

Introduction 86

The rise of religious dissent 86

Parliament and party 91

The challenge of the colonies 96

From scripture to efficiency 98

Conclusion 101

5 'The Man is Everything, and the Woman Nothing': Protecting, purifying and conceptualising the family, c.1862-88 109

Introduction 109

A new social conscience, an old moral compass 110

Reconceptualising the family 116

Narratives of sexual danger, love, honour and shame 120

Conclusion 127

6 'It is Too Readily Assumed that all Those Who are Opposed to this Kind of Marriage are Idiots': Public opinion, print and personal conscience, 1862-1906 136

Introduction 136

From the word of God to the voice of the people 137

New directions 144

Women's rights and the female voice 152

Conclusion 159

7 'It is Time this Controversy should End': Reform and reaction 169

Introduction 169

Proposal and acceptance 169

Ceremony and reception 179

Conclusion 184

Conclusion: A woman's question, a man's need, a class's interest? 192

Select bibliography 199

Index 201