Maurice wrote: >It is illegal for a man to marry his >late wife's sister but was it illegal then? Did it matter? Perhaps they just >lived together? I have a similar case from the 1850s in my family where the man married one sister and then following her death, married the other younger one (was she prettier I wonder?). I understand (from a contributor on the Oxford list) that it was illegal until 1907 when the law was changed but that it is now permissible. Apparently it must have been a fairly frequent occurrence as according to my informant, the wording of the act states that people who married prior to the passing of the law would not be prosecuted. It looks like a matter of trying to straighten out and legalise a situation which was common enough. In the case of my forebears the second marriage took place in a different (city) parish where presumably the vicar did not know of the previous marriage (well that is my reading of the situation). However they did go back to the village to live so I can only guess that the vicar there and the rest of the locals turned a blind eye or were broad-minded - so much for straight-laced Victorian morality! :-) I am sorry, even though I have strong links with Preshute and Marlborough St Peter's, I can't help with your case of the 'bad penny' Steve, in damp Swindon