Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1901 — DIVORCE A CHURCH SIN. [ARTICLE]

DIVORCE A CHURCH SIN.

The Episcopalian Clergymen’* Revised Canon la Rigid. In the report to be submitted to the convention of the 'Protestant Episcopal Church on the prohibition of marriage within certain degrees of consanguinity i* a proposed cauon forbidding a man from wedding his dead wife’s sister.' There has been vigorous opposition. Attached to the report is a “proposed canon on prohibited degrees.” This is it: “Marriage between persons standing to one another in the following relations is prohibited by this church. A man may not marry his mother, step-mother, daughter, step-daughter, daughter-in-law, sister, sister-in-law, grandmother, step-grandmother, grandinother-in-lhw, granddaughter. step - granddaughter, granddaughter-in-law, aunt, aunt by marriage, niece, niece by marriage. A woman may not marry father, step-father, son, step-son, son-in-law, brother, broth-er-in-law, grandfather, step-grandfather, grandfather-in-law, grandson, step-grand-son, grandson-in-law, uncle, uncle by marriage, nephew, nephew by marriage.” Should the proposed canon be accepted it will raise within the Episcopal Church in this country the question which has long vexed the lawgivers in England on the subject of the deceased wife’s sister, for marriage to a sister-in-law is prohibited. Marriages of divorced persons where the ground for divorce occurred after marriage is strictly prohibited, and the marriage to a deceased wife's sister is also placed under the ban.