Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907

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The Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907 was a statute passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

Previously, it was forbidden for a man to marry the sister of his deceased wife. This prohibition derived from a doctrine of Canon Law whereby those who were connected by marriage were regarded as being related to each other in a way which made marriage between them improper. This doctrine was reflected in the Table of kindred and affinity in the Anglican (Church of England) Book of Common Prayer. Prohibition of marriage between certain degrees of kindred outlawed what is known as incest; prohibition between degrees of relationship by marriage (affinity) as opposed to blood (consanguinity) seems to have reflected an analogous taboo. At least one novel, Felicia Skene's The Inheritance of Evil; Or, the Consequences of Marrying a Deceased Wife's Sister addressed the topic in polemic fictional form.

Under ecclesiastical law, a marriage within the prohibited degrees was not absolutely void but it was voidable at the suit of any interested party. For this reason, Charles, the younger brother of Jane Austen, was able to marry his deceased wife's sister in 1820 and to remain married to her until he died in 1852. The Marriage Act 1835, however, hardened the law into an absolute prohibition (whilst, however, authorising any such marriages which had already taken place), so that such marriages could no longer take place in the United Kingdom and colonies at all (in Scotland they were prohibited by a Scottish Marriage Act of 1567). Such marriages from that date had to take place abroad: see, for example, William Holman Hunt and John Collier, both painters, who married the sisters of their deceased wives in Italy and in Norway respectively. But this was only possible for those who could afford it.

The desire of widowed men to marry the sister of their deceased wife became the subject of particular agitation from the 1860s onwards and strong feelings were roused on both sides. However, it was to be nearly 50 years before the campaign for a change in the law was successful, despite the introduction of draft legislation in Parliament on many occasions. The lengthy nature of the campaign was referred to in the Gilbert and Sullivan opera Iolanthe, in which the Queen of the Fairies sings "He shall prick that annual blister, marriage with deceased wife's sister".

The Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907 removed the prohibition (although it allowed individual clergy, if they chose, to refuse to conduct marriages which would previously have been prohibited). But the Act did exactly what it said and no more. So, for example, it was not until 1921 that the Deceased Brother's Widow's Marriage Act 1921 was passed. The Marriage (Prohibited Degrees) Relationship Act 1931 extended the operation of the 1907 Act to allow the marriages of nieces and nephews by marriage as well.