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Inquiry into the Christian law as to the relationships which bar marriage
Inquiry into the Christian law as to the relationships which bar marriage Author:William Lindsay Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: wife, depend almost all the legal rights, duties, and disabilities that either of them acquire by marriage. The same degrees by affinity are prohibited. As a hus... more »band is related by affinity to all the consanguinei of his wife, and, vice versa, the wife to all the husband's consanguinei; for the husband and wife being considered one flesh, those who are related to the one by blood, are related to the other by affinity; therefore a man after his wife's death cannot marry her sister, aunt, or niece."—Comm., book i., chap. 15. CHAPTER IV. CONSIDERATION OF THE MOSAIC PROHIBITION REGARDING A BROTHER'S WIFE. It is only on account of two of the relationships mentioned in Lev. xviii., that the general principles now laid down have ever been called in question. If the other relationships which Moses describes, such as those of mother and son, brother and sister, had been the only ones spoken of, the permanent obligation of the chapter and its reference to marriage would never have been denied. The marriages, for the sake of which many are willing to sacrifice these important principles— strangely overlooking the fact that, if the sacrifice legitimates the unions which they contend for, it equally authorizes many others which theywould blush to defend—are those of a man to his brother's wife, and of a man to his wife's sister. The first of these connections is specified by Moses in Lev. xviii. 16, " Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother's wife: it is thy brother's nakedness." Nothing more express or definite could be imagined than this. We have established the permanent obligation of the whole chapter, and we have seen that the prohibitions contained in it, though not referring to marriage only, yet always necessarily imply a condemnation of marriage between the kin...« less