s equally clear that she should be the stepmother. A common dwelling in their case implies and necessitates cohabitation. Very often two chambers are not to be had; and, at any rate, there is such a want of privacy, and so much of compulsory contiguity, that delicacy will be shocked and outraged while the two persons live apart, or a closer union will take place, with the permission of the law, or in defiance of it.
Now, as it is quite clear the Legislature cannot make one law for the rich and another for the poor, and the policy of such a measure is essentially different with reference to the two classes, it seems to me almost a self-evident proposition, that it must just let the matter alone. It does not concern Parliament, nor fall within their province. Many persons have a strong feeling against such unions, but they have no right to impose a yoke upon their neighbours; and the attempt to do so, it seems, is resented as a wrong, which mens natural sense of justice revolts against. In our rank of life, I think it an invasion of our liberty which we have a fair right to complain of: you and I can settle such matters for ourselves, at least as well as Lord Lyndhurst, and they who voted with him very blindly, after little thought, and no enquiry.
But the grievance to you and me is nothing as compared to the poor man's grievance. We can get nurses and governesses for our children. A kind sister-in-law perhaps will come and live with us, and we can give her such accommodation as she wants. He has not room in his house for any female but a wife: none but an aunt can be expected to take
