The '''''' (
7 Edw. 7. c. 47) removed the prohibition while providing savers for various existing laws, some to placate opposition of the
Lords Spiritual (Church of England bishops). The bill was introduced as a
private member's bill by
William Brampton Gurdon, a
backbencher of the
Liberal Party, which was
then in government. The government belatedly decided to support the bill, which David G. Barrie sees as evidence of
its commitment to social reform and willingness to take on the Lords, foreshadowing the
Parliament Act 1911.
Provisions Section 1 of the act removed the affinity between a man and his deceased wife's sister as grounds for annulment of a past or future marriage. It allowed a
Church of England clergyman to refuse to officiate at such a wedding, and to nominate a substitute clergyman of the same
diocese to officiate in his stead. Past marriages of such affinity would remain null, notwithstanding the change in law, if they had already been annulled or either spouse had subsequently married someone else. Section 2 provided that inheritance rights and obligations would not be changed by the validation of past marriages under the Act. Section 3 provided that the
Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 would be unaffected;
adultery with one's wife's sister remained grounds for divorce proceedings, and a man was still forbidden from marrying his divorced wife's sister. Section 4 retained the liability to
ecclesiastical censure of a Church of England clergyman who married his deceased wife's sister. Section 5 provided that the provisions applied to
half-sisters. Section 6 assigned the Act's
short title.
Case law The 1907 refusal of
Holy Communion by the
vicar of
Eaton, Norfolk, to a
parishioner legally married to his deceased wife's sister was overruled in 1908 by the statement of the
Arches Court (a ruling upheld in 1912 by the House of Lords) that section 1 of the 1907 Act meant the
Sacrament Act 1547 no longer applied to such spouses. The will of a man who died in 1902 specified that income from his investments would be paid to his widow until her remarriage. The income continued after her invalid 1904 remarriage to her deceased sister's widower. In 1911,
Robert Parker ruled that, although s. 1 of the 1907 Act validated the 1904 marriage, s. 2 prevented termination of the 1902 income. A putative widow died shortly after the 1907 enactment. A son from her late husband's first marriage to her sister died
intestate in 1911. Later that year,
Thomas Warrington ruled that the widow's children were entitled to the same share of their half-brother's estate as his full siblings. If one was forbidden from marrying someone even after one's current spouse died, then sex with them while one's current spouse lived was considered to constitute the crime of incest under the Scottish
Marriage Act 1567, and considered grounds for divorce under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857. As regards sex with one's living wife's sister, the Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907 explicitly preserved the 1857 position but was silent on the 1567 position. Where settlement funds were to be held in trust for the children of A as well by B as by every and any future wife he might marry, and A, after the death of B, by whom he had three children who all attained 21 in his lifetime, went through the form of marriage with the sister of his dead wife and had three children by her, and subsequently s. 1 of the 1907 act legalized that marriage. In 1922,
Frank Russell held that the effect of s. 2 was to provide that rights of property existing at the date of that marriage were not to be altered or interfered with, and that accordingly the children of the second marriage took no share of the settlement funds. == Subsequent legislation ==