an intimacy as close, but of a totally different character, in which case it will be highly perilous to both; for what woman with whom a union by marriage is possible is ever allowed the degree of intimacy in question? or, lastly, the intimacy will cease, the wife's sister will be as any other woman. She may not any longer venture on the innocent familiarities of a sister, nor reside alone with an individual brother-in-law. The last is the best result that can occur from our relaxation of the law.
Great indeed will be the loss—great the misery to sisters-in-law—and in thousands of families the brother-in-law, on his part, loses an equal happiness; nay, the wife herself will have far less frequent intercourse with her own sister. If her husband now become a widower, he has all the world to choose a wife from, except only his sister-in-law and the other near relations of his wife. This last is the whole amount of the hardship of the existing law—for I really can give no weight to the argument that the aunt is the best substitute for a mother to his children. The argument is all the other way. She can act as such mother now, and live with him after his wife's decease for that purpose, and does so continually; but why must she marry him? Mr. Roebuck well observed, the aunt's fitness for taking charge of the children is not improved by her becoming their step-mother. Her having children of her own to
