insert in the Appendix to my second letter extracts from an interesting letter of a clergyman of South Carolina on the subject of these two nearly connected questions, the selection of one of the prohibited degrees for relaxation, and the facility of divorce. I have given the extracts fully and fairly, whether they appear in any way to press for or against my view. The whole result is to my mind clear as to the result of the relaxation. In either of those two countries the wife can scarcely invite her sister-in-law to her home, without the possible prospect of her immediate succession to her as its mistress. At present in our country, even should the law be altered, the sister-in-law could only look forward to the reversion. True it is, that nearly every country, that has relaxed the prohibition as to the wife's sister, has also relaxed the law of divorce; and we may easily see that arguments used to promote the one relaxation lead at once to the others. Why is there so much adultery, it will be said? And it will be answered, because a man is tied for life to his wife. Yet I think England is not yet prepared to see gentlemen meeting two or three women, who have been successively their wives, in society; and such is the case in Germany and the United States of America. Nor are we prepared to see a fastidious gentleman making the experiment, as to which of two or three sisters he may prefer in succession as his wife. Yet few can say that this will not be the
