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 L I E) R.A R.Y 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N I VLR5 ITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS
 
 o 
 
 THE UNLAWFULNESS OF THE 
 
 MARRIAGE OF BROTHER AND 
 SISTER-IN-LAW, 
 
 IN THE LIGHT OF THE WORD OF GOD; 
 SSitlt Ancient (EDilicure hitlicvta gcnerallB J3btrl00kei). 
 
 By W. B. galloway, M.A. 
 
 VICAR OF ST. mark's, REGENT's PARK, 
 AND CHAPLAIN TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD VISCOUNT HAWARDEN. 
 
 EIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE; 
 
 HIGH STREET, I TRINITY STREET, 
 
 ©xforlr. I ("TamSrilrge. 
 1S70. 
 
 Frice One Shilling.
 
 THE UNLAWFULNESS OF THE 
 
 MARRIAGE OF BROTHER AND 
 SISTER-IN-LAW. 
 
 Although mucli lias been spoken and written on the 
 subject of marriage with a deceased wife's sister, 
 and it was supposed that further agitation of the 
 pubhc mind upon that question might have been 
 spared, yet, as it has been renewed with much 
 appearance of a determination to press for an altera- 
 tion of the law, it becomes necessary to review 
 again the moral and religious grounds on which it 
 rests. In the controversial treatment of the ques- 
 tion, amid the eagerness of mind on the one side 
 and the other, for the attack or the defence of a 
 great moral principle of our social and domestic life, 
 it is not to be wondered at if the disputants in some 
 points have failed to seize, or to discern with suf- 
 ficient accuracy, the exact bearings of the Scriptural 
 or other evidence ; and thus the argument' has to 
 some extent got upon a false footing. It shall be 
 endeavoured in the following pages to point out 
 where and how this has occurred, in the hope that 
 the removal of some generally-received fallacies will 
 
 A 2
 
 4 Errors fr 0771 taking Levit. xviii. i8 detached, 
 
 be found to strengthen the defence of truth and 
 virtue. 
 
 It has been generally assumed that the prohibi- 
 tion in Leviticus, chapter xviii. ver. 18, which in the 
 English Authorized Version is read, "Neither shalt 
 thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover 
 her nakedness, beside the other in her life time^^ 
 refers specially to this controverted relation : and 
 while at one time it was quoted as pointing towards 
 the disallowing of marriage with a deceased wife's 
 sister, it is now very commonly laid hold of by 
 those who advocate the removal of the restriction ; 
 and they refer to the circumstance that the express- 
 ing of a prohibition of it during the wife's life tijne, 
 is, in their opinion, a clear permission, perhaps it 
 might be said even a strong suggestive recom- 
 mendation of it, after her death; just as an in- 
 struction given not to eat the pear before it was 
 ripe, would certainly be construed as suggesting to 
 the patient expectant the eating of it then. The 
 eager and triumphant air with which they put for- 
 ward the limitation of the express prohibition as 
 decisive, justifies the use of the analogy ; but when 
 the case is examined more carefully, it may be 
 doubtful whether even they will not recoil from it. 
 
 It is well known that the phrase here literally 
 translated " a wife to her sister," is idiomatic, and 
 that in every other instance of its use it means 
 simply " one with the other," or " one to the 
 other ^" Thus the curtains of the sanctuary were 
 commanded to be looped and fastened '' one to the 
 other," — literally, as here, '' a wife to her sister." 
 "When a phrase is thus known, by abundant proof, 
 
 ^ Exod. xxvi. 3. 5. 9^^
 
 Errors from taking Lev it. xviii. 18 detached. 5 
 
 to liave been understood idiomatically and in one 
 uniform sense, it is a straining of language to take 
 it, in this one solitary place, in a forced literal 
 meaning, or in any otlier way than as the usual 
 idiom. If it had been meant to specify the assumed 
 relationship, the expression would more naturally 
 have been, " Thou shalt not take tlie sister of 
 thy wife.'^ But, as it stands, the expression is 
 forced and unnatural, if read otherwise than in its 
 common idiomatic sense ^ The marginal rendering 
 in our Authorized Version, " one wife to another," 
 comes nearer to its idiomatic force, but not fully up 
 to it. Our learned translators, though dissatisfied 
 with the rendering in the text, contented themselves 
 with suggesting a nearer one, without at once dis- 
 placing the generally received. Many have erro- 
 neously supposed that, if taken in its proper idio- 
 matic force here, it would amount to a prohibition 
 of polygamy ; which it could not be intended to 
 convey, since polygamy is known to have been per- 
 mitted under the Mosaic law. In any case, it would 
 not necessarily forbid such polygamy as Abraham's 
 in taking Hagar, by the consent and at the request of 
 his wife, not in rivalry with her ; of which nature also 
 was Jacob's, in taking the handmaids of Rachel and 
 Leah ; though it might forbid it under other circum- 
 
 ^ Neither in Hebrew nor Greek, nor yet in Latin, any more 
 than in English, is the expression that which would be used to 
 signify " Thou shalt not take the sister of thy wife." Jerome felt 
 that it was not Latin, as it stood in the Old Version, " Uxorem 
 super sororem ejus non aceipies in zelum," and erroneously altered 
 it to " sororem uxoris tuae in peliicatum illius non aceipies." The 
 old Latin was simply a literal rendering of the Greek, ywalKa 
 Itt aSeXcfirj avrrjs, which is merely a literal transcript of the Hebrew 
 idiom, with the same meaning, and is not equivalent in Greek to 
 T^v 6.^^\^r]v TTJs yvvatKo^ crov, " the sister of thy wife."
 
 6 Errors f7^07n takuig Levit. xviii. \% detached, 
 
 stances, in consonance with Deut. xvii. 17 ; Exod. xxi. 
 10. But tlie true reference is definite to persons pre- 
 viously specified ; the idiom of the language requiring 
 this, as Professor Robinson and Dr. McCaul have both 
 remarked, and yet not seen its bearing here •'' ; and 
 the meaning will be sufficiently obvious to any who 
 will take the trouble to read two verses consecu- 
 tively, instead of detaching this verse from that 
 
 ' " When the words, * a woman to her sister,' or in the masculine 
 form, ' a man to his brother,' are used idiomatically to signify 
 * one to another,' they have always a plural antecedent of the 
 things or persons spoken of." — Dr. McCaul. 
 
 " The phrase, * a woman to her sister,' does indeed occur no less 
 than eight times elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible in the general mean- 
 ing, ' one to another,' but only of inanimate objects in the feminine 
 gender ; viz. of the curtains, loops, and tenons of the tabernacle, 
 Exod. xxvi. 3 bis, 5, 6. 17; and of the wings of the living creatures, 
 Ezek. i. 9. 23 ; iii. 13. The like phrase ' a man to his brother,' 
 occurs in all about twenty times ; mostly of men, but also in a few 
 instances of inanimate objects or insects, as Exod. xxv. 20. Joel 
 ii. 8. But it is to be remarked that in every such instance, this 
 phrase, whether masculine or feminine, has a reciprocal distribu- 
 tive power ; that is, a number of persons or things are said to do 
 or to be so, one to another. A plural nominative invariably pre- 
 cedes, connected with a plural verb ; and then the action or rela- 
 tion of this verb is by this phrase marked as reciprocal and mutual 
 among the individuals comprised in the plural nominative." — 
 Prof. Robinson. 
 
 The Professor is slightly and unintentionally inaccurate here, 
 since the reciprocity may certainly refer to persons or things 
 mentioned in the objective, governed by a verb in the singular 
 (' thou shalt not take'), as he himself confesses by an illustration 
 which he expressly gives in the same place. There is no plural 
 verb in Exod. xxvi. 15 — 17, nor is it necessarily even implied 
 elliptically, but the construction is objective. Dr. McCaul else- 
 where confesses that the words here " require a singular noun 
 going before." — Letter to yice-Chanccllor Wood, p. 52. 
 
 Both requirements are substantially answered in the render- 
 ing which is the true and natural one, as will immediately be 
 found.
 
 Natural Construction of Levit. xviii. 17, 1 8. 7 
 
 whidi immediately precedes it, and to which it bears 
 direct reference, 
 
 Ver. 17, 18. *'Thou shalt not uncover the naked- 
 ness of a woman and her daughter, neither shalt 
 thou take her son's daughter, or her daughter's 
 daughter, to uncover her nakedness ; for they are 
 her near kinswomen : it is wickedness : and * one 
 with the other thou shalt not take, to rival, to 
 uncover her nakedness besides her as long as she 
 liveth." 
 
 The last clause may, and probably does, mean an 
 extension of the prohibition, not for a time contingent 
 on the life of another, but for the whole of her own 
 life ^ But assume it for the present in the sense 
 they wish. If a man had taken for his wife a woman 
 who had a young and beautiful daughter, then, 
 though the daughter was not his relation by blood, 
 it was not permitted him, even if he were brute 
 enough himself, by and by to replace the faded charms 
 of the mother by the fresh and youthful bloom of 
 her daughter ; no, nor in his advancing years, when 
 the daughter too had married, and had a daughter 
 grown to maturity, was he at Hberty to indulge his 
 old age with the attractions of that younger scion. 
 One with the other he might not take into rivalry, 
 to uncover her nakedness besides her, as long as she 
 lived. They were, indeed, no blood relations of his; 
 but it was enough that they were near blood relations 
 of hers, — " her near kinswomen." The reason here 
 assigned involves a principle sufficiently comprehen- 
 
 * The conjunction in the original is copulative, not disjunctive, 
 being not placed in connexion with the negative particle, but in 
 the order here indicated. 
 
 ' Compare the expression, 1 Sam. i. 11.
 
 8 How this affects the present Question, 
 
 sive to apply to some other degrees, such as her 
 sister; but it is here specially applied to the wife's 
 mother, daughter, or granddaughter. 
 
 And will it now be said, as triumphantly as before, 
 that the expression '' as long as she liveth " implies 
 that he was at full liberty to take the daughter after 
 the mother's death ? No : their argument here 
 involves more than they would find convenient to 
 advocate. Yet it holds here, if at all. But the 
 words must be taken in one or other ot two ways. 
 Either the expression "as long as she liveth" extends 
 the prohibition, as before suggested, to the whole of 
 her own life, in contradistinction from any limitation 
 of time depending on the life of her rival, and means 
 strictly that he shall never take her ; in which case 
 the relation of "rivals" must be understood in a 
 wide Jewish conventional or legal use, as extending 
 to all who held, or had held, the parallel condition of 
 wives of the same man, even though not at the 
 same time; a relationship still subsisting, in its con- 
 sequences affecting the near kindred, even after the 
 married union had ceased, whether by divorce or 
 death. Or, if not taken thus, then the limitation 
 " in her life time " might be introduced on account of 
 the extreme j)enalt\j annexed to the crime ; for if a 
 man married a woman and her daughter, they were 
 all three to be burned ^ Possibly if the daughter 
 was taken only after the mother's death, that extreme 
 penalty might not be required to be put in force ; I 
 am not prepared to say that it would not ; but if so, 
 would this limitation prove that after her death the 
 act has the sanction of God in Scripture ? The 
 argument would be as monstrous as the crime is 
 ^ Levit. XX. 14.
 
 The above Co?istructio7t ancienlly recognized, 9 
 
 abhorred. On the contrary, we must assume that 
 the aim was hi the direction of strict hohness, and 
 that the hmitation of the punishment did not imply 
 justification of the act. Law is to be distinguished 
 from precept in this respect, that law does not 
 prescribe or forbid where it does not undertake to 
 enforce obedience. All things are not to be concluded 
 as sanctioned or approved by law, which are only not 
 expressly forbidden by it. We know that in some 
 cases the Jewish legislator was practically hindered 
 from bringing his civil enactments up to the strict 
 line of holiness, by the low state of morals to which 
 the people had previously become accustomed in 
 Canaan and Egypt, and from which they were but 
 just emerging ; and that some things were permitted 
 under their civil law " because of the hardness of 
 their hearts." Of this nature was the liberty of 
 arbitrary divorce, which the legislator only partially 
 restricted by requiring the execution of a written 
 document. And to the same purpose may be cited 
 the custom of the avenger of blood, which he 
 restricted by instituting cities of refuge, and by 
 various regulations ; the aim being to reduce the 
 evil to the minimum then attainable. 
 
 The simple and natural construction of the 
 passage as given above, will commend itself to 
 those who can refer to the original. It suggests 
 no difficulty, except how it could have happened 
 that it should be so long overlooked, or that 
 this interpretation should not have been given 
 before : to which it may be answered that it had 
 been given in ancient times, but that it was after- 
 wards lost sight of; first, from the desire of 
 some interpreters to be scrupulously literal to the
 
 lo . The above Cofistrziction aficiently recognized. 
 
 words, rather than faithful to the meaning and to 
 the idiom of the language ; and next, from the use 
 made of the passage by more modern controversialists. 
 That it had been so construed in ancient times is 
 manifest from the following remarkable passage from 
 Philo Judaeus, although in the same passage there is 
 also evidence of the tendency to combine the strained 
 literal rendering of the words ; for it was a practice 
 of the Alexandrian interpreters of Scripture thus to 
 combine the modes of construing a passage, giving 
 sometimes both of two incompatible renderings, 
 instead of either selecting the one, or putting the 
 other only as an alternative. The Jewish philosopher 
 and moralist above named writes to the following 
 effect : " For the intermarriages of strangers pro- 
 duce new relationships not short of those which are 
 by blood ' : for which reason he hath also debarred 
 many other connexions, enjoining a man not to 
 contract marriage with a granddaughter-in-law, the 
 wife ^ of a daughter's son, or of a son's son ; nor 
 with a wife's aunt, whether on her father's or on her 
 mother's side ; nor with one who had been the wife 
 of an uncle, or of a son, or of a brother ^ : nor 
 again to ived luith a step-daughter, ivhether widoiv 
 or virgin, in addition to his ivife if she he living, hut 
 
 '' At re yap rcov oOv^iwv eTrtya/xi'at Kaivas aTrepya^ovrat o-vyycv€t'as 
 rcov air at/xaros ovk aTToSeouVas, &C. — Philo, De Specialibiis Legibiis 
 qu£e referuntiir ad duo Decalogi capita, sextum septimumqiie. 
 0pp. ed. Mangey, vol. ii. p. 303. 
 
 ^ Here, of course (as in innumerable other similar cases), "wife" 
 must mean " widow " or something equivalent, for it must be after 
 the cessation of the marriage relation by death or divorce. 
 
 ^ It will be observed that this statement as to the brother's wife 
 or widow is made without the slightest allusion to any supposed 
 exception.
 
 The pri^iciple of the P7'ohibitio7i in ver, 17. 11 
 
 not even after lier death '. For the step-fatlier, being 
 yirtually fatlier, ouglit to put the daughter of his 
 wife in the position of his own daughter. Again : 
 he does not permit the same man to marry two 
 sisters, either at the same or at different times. 
 For while she who cohabited with him still lives, 
 even if divorced, whether she continue single, as in 
 widowhood, or even have been married to another, 
 he deemed it unholj for the sister to come into the 
 lot of her who had been unfortunate; teaching these 
 not to dissolve the obhgations of kindred, nor to 
 come in upon the disasters of her who was thus 
 united in race, nor to glory and luxuriate in receiving 
 court from those who are at enmity with her, and in 
 paying them court in return." 
 
 This passage contains, in the words which are 
 put in italics, an indication that the seventeenth 
 and eighteenth verses of the eighteenth chapter of 
 Leviticus had been read in connexion, and construed 
 in the manner which has been presented above as 
 the only true idiomatic rendering. There is no 
 other part of Scripture, and no other mode of read- 
 ing this, which could have originated or even sug- 
 gested these words. The latter part of the above 
 passage from Pliilo seems to take also, in combina- 
 tion with this, the literal and ini-idiomatic construc- 
 tion of the eighteenth verse, which has been fol- 
 lowed in modern times ; and that, apart from the 
 other, was all that the late Dr. McCaul was per- 
 mitted by bis controversial bias to observe in Philo's 
 statement. There may have seemed to be some 
 partial justification of admitting that view as an 
 
 ^ M778' av irpoyovqv, rj X'i]pa.v rj TrapOivov, ^(i)ar]s fx^v t7;s yvvaiKOS 
 liray ^(jO at, aXka p.qK a—o0avoijcrr]s.
 
 1 2 How Christianity affects the Case, 
 
 extended application of tlie passage in Leviticus, in 
 combination with tlie primary meaning, in conse- 
 quence of the general reason assigned in the seven- 
 teenth verse for the prohibition there contained, 
 " Tlieij are her near Jdndrecl," for that gives a prin- 
 ciple v^hich could scarcely fail to include her own 
 sister ^ Thus the case of the wife's sister is there 
 by implication, though not named. But to what 
 extent the principle was held to forbid her marriage 
 with her sister's husband, might in practice among 
 the Jews be partially affected by the very unequal 
 footing of the two sexes in that imperfect dispensa- 
 tion. The law of Leviticus viewed the case princi- 
 pally from the male side; and though the moral 
 relation of two sisters successively to one and the 
 same man as husband is strictly parallel to that of 
 two brothers in succession to one and the same 
 woman as vfife, yet, in order to discern this, the 
 case must be looked at from the female side, as well 
 as from the male. The tendency of the law of 
 Moses was to elevate the position of woman above 
 that into which it had previously fallen, and to bring 
 it up toivards equality of moral rights ; but this it 
 imperfectly accomplished. While slavery and poly- 
 gamy lasted, the moral rights, and consequently the 
 moral responsibilities of woman, could not be equal. 
 But Christianity has made them equal. In Christ 
 there is neither bond nor free, neither male nor female. 
 
 ^ The manner in which the passage is used and applied by 
 Maimonides and Rabbi Ob. De Bartenora as including several for- 
 bidden degrees of consanguinity to the wife under the expression 
 of " a wife to her sister," or " one with another," confirms the 
 view of the passage here given, and will be found afterwards 
 remarked on in a note when we come to s^'peak of the Mishna.
 
 Lev irate Laiv. — The Sadchicees Question. 13 
 
 The obligations of holiness are equal, and the pro- 
 pinquity which excludes two brothers from marry- 
 ing in succession the same woman, must equally 
 exclude two sisters from marrying in succession the 
 same man. 
 
 Now from the male side the relation of two 
 brothers born of the same parents was unquestionably 
 declared so near, as to forbid their successively 
 marrying the same woman, as we read in Levit. 
 xviii. 16. Here again, however, there exists, in 
 some particulars, much popular misapprehension of 
 facts regarding the Jewish law. The case of the 
 seven brethren, which the Sadducees put to our 
 blessed Lord, has been assumed to show that it was 
 permitted, nay prescribed in certain cases, for a man 
 to marry the widow of his own full brother, born of 
 the same parents ; and, as if this position were 
 incontestably true, instead of undoubtedly mis- 
 taken, a respected minister, lately exalted to be a 
 dignitary of the church, is quoted as arguing that 
 because it was lawful, and in certain cases pre- 
 scribed, that a brother should take his brother's 
 wife, therefore it must be lawful in the sight of God 
 for a man to take his deceased wife's sister, if only 
 the law of man were altered to permit it. It is 
 superJluous to point out, as regards that clergyman, 
 that this was certainly on his part to hold and teach 
 contrary to the doctrine and discipline of the Church 
 of England, which regards such a marriage as in- 
 cestuous ; and that the necessary certificate for a 
 clergyman could not have subsequently been given 
 with any colour of truth, to the effect that he 
 had not held or taught contrary to the doctrine or 
 discipline of the Church, unless he had renounced
 
 14 Case p 71 1 by the Saddiicees traced. 
 
 that error. We may reasonably assume therefore 
 that the dignitary in question must long previously 
 have abandoned his erroneous opinion, though it is 
 still quoted. It is well known that in many cases 
 the clergy were entrapped into the rash expression 
 of prematiu'e opinions by plausible canvassers for 
 petitions to parliament for the alteration of the law, 
 and that the names thus affixed without due con- 
 sideration became also the means of decoying others. 
 It is also known that some, who were thus drawn in, 
 afterwards declared themselves to the contrary, and 
 joined the " Marriage Law Defence Association." 
 But we are dealing herewith arguments and statements, 
 not with persons; and it therefore will suffice to show 
 that the case put by the Sadducees was not such as 
 has been thus supposed; that the Mosaic law on 
 which it was founded implies no such thing; that 
 under the law there are no instances in which it was 
 so exemplified ; and that there is express proof that 
 the marriage of a brother with his own brother's 
 wife or widow was by the law of the Jews in- 
 cestuous, even where there had been no children ; 
 and accordingly, that the own brother was expressly 
 exempted from the claim of his brother's widow. 
 
 The Sadducees, in putting to our Lord a sup- 
 posed difficulty as to the resurrection of the dead, 
 were under no necessity of either inventing a case, 
 or encumbering it with improbable circumstances 
 not bearing on the point at issue. The point of 
 the case, as they themselves put it regarding the 
 woman, was not that the seven were all sons of the 
 same parents, but simply that " seven had her to 
 wije^'' and that under the Levirate law she had an 
 authorized claim to the seven. But that they
 
 Case p2it by the S adduce ees braced. 15 
 
 should be all oimi-hr oilier s of one another was no- 
 where specified or thought of in the Levirate law. 
 Xor could it be replied to the Sadducees that their 
 supposed case was their own mere invention : for 
 the case itself was to be found in one of their tra- 
 ditionary tales of the Captivity ; namely, in the apo- 
 cryphal book of Tobit; and the only supposition 
 which they introduced, varying from the case there 
 given, was the terminating of it after the death of 
 the seven, instead of the woman, under the same 
 law, eventually, beyond expectation, marrying an 
 eighth, in the person of Tobias, to whom she bore 
 children. For the purpose of the Sadducees' argu- 
 ment, it was allowable to suppose that she might 
 have died after the seven to whom she bore no 
 children; and the stopping of the case there was 
 necessary to the point of the equal claim of the 
 seven, on which their objection rested. But there 
 is nothing in the traditionary tale founded on to 
 indicate that the seven men were nearer related to 
 one another than they were to the eighth, namely, 
 Tobias; and he, unquestionably, was not the own- 
 brother of any one of them. The case, though 
 lying at the doors, as it were, and such as might be 
 expected to be famihar, is yet unknown to many, 
 and we may therefore cite it as important to our 
 subject. It will be found in the third chapter of 
 Tobit. Sara, the daughter of Raguel, an Israelite, 
 of Ecbatane in Media, as we there read, " was re- 
 proached by her father's maids because that she had 
 been married to seven husbands, whom Asmodeus, 
 the evil spirit, had killed before they had lain with 
 her. Dost thou not know, said they, that thou 
 hast strangled thine husbands ? Thou hast already
 
 1 6 Case put by the Saddticees traced, 
 
 had seven husbands, neither wast thou named after 
 any of them. . . . When she heard these thmgs she 
 was very sorrowful, so that she thought to have 
 strangled herself." Her sorrow, we then read, was 
 poured out in prayer, in which her case is thus 
 stated by herself: " Thou knowest, Lord, that I 
 am pure from all sin with man, and that I never 
 polluted my name, nor the name of my father, in 
 the land of my captivity ; I am the only daughter of 
 my father, neither hath he any child to be his heir, 
 neither any near hinsman, nor any son of his, alive, to 
 whom I may keep myself for a ivife. My seven hus- 
 bands are already dead ; and ivhy should I live ? 
 but if it please thee not that I should die, command 
 some regard to be had of me, and pity taken of me, 
 that I hear no more reproach." 
 
 Thus far the case was precisely that put by the 
 Sadducees. The fall extent of her Levirate claim 
 was believed to be exhausted ; and she would not go 
 and be married to a stranger so as to carry the in- 
 heritance with her out of the family, much less out 
 of her people, so polluting her name in the land of 
 her captivity. As far as was known at the time, 
 there lived no kinsman, nor kinsman's son, whom 
 she could claim. It was not one family only of her 
 kindred that was exhausted by the seven already 
 fruitlessly betrothed to her, but all the families of 
 all her kindred. The seasonable arrival of Tobias, 
 the son of a kinsman long removed from them by 
 distance, and long lost to intercourse or knowledge 
 amid the incidents of the captivity, opened a new 
 chapter in her history; but the purpose of the 
 Sadducees required the case to be assumed as it 
 was, and would have been, without that unexpected
 
 Case put by the Saduccees traced. 1 7 
 
 re-opening. Now Tobias, who was entitled to her 
 hand, according to the tale, married her under the 
 claim of the law which gave her to her husband's 
 "brother;" but the relationship here is stated to 
 have been that he was the son of a cousin of her 
 father ^ "Will it be objected that the book of Tobit 
 is a romance ? It is unnecessary here to discuss 
 that question, because even if so, it is at least an 
 ancient Israelitish historical romance, of the period 
 following the captivity of the ten tribes, and it is 
 written by one practically conversant with their 
 laws and customs. It furnished thus a sufficient 
 basis for the expression of the Sadducees, " There 
 were with us seven brethren*." And what would 
 the objectors oppose to it ? A baseless invention of 
 their own, such as the Sadducees never contem- 
 plated, — a romance, differing from the other in being 
 false alike to Jewish history, Jewish law, and Jewish 
 tradition, and which we are bound to consign un- 
 ceremoniously to the limbo of all falsehoods. Under 
 the Mosaic law it was expressly enacted, " Thou 
 shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother's 
 wife : it is thy brother's nakedness ^" It is a mis- 
 take, however prevalent it may be, to suppose that 
 the Levirate law of Dent. xxv. 5, as understood and 
 
 ^ Tobit vii. 2 ; vi. 11, 12. There is another feature of the 
 Jewish law which appears prominent in the tale of Tobit. The 
 law applied in the case where betrothment had taken place, though 
 the persons had not actually cohabited. This of itself might 
 materially affect the present argument, since betrothment often 
 took place at a very early age by the parents of the parties, and 
 the Levirate claim might come into force where the betrothed 
 bridegroom died while yet a minor, and the marriage had never 
 been consummated. 
 
 * Matt. xxii. 25. * Levit. xviii. 16.
 
 1 8 The Lev irate Lazu, Dent. xxv. 5. 
 
 used in Israel, required, in any case, a violation of 
 this precept, or exempted tlie violator of it from the 
 penalty under the Divine administration, " He shall 
 be childless." The law of Deuteronomy, under 
 which the objection of the Sadducees was framed, 
 is the following : — 
 
 "If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, 
 and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not 
 
 M AERY WITHOUT UNTO A STRANGEE: HER HUSBANd's BROTHER 
 
 [that is, "6ro^/ier" opposed to ^^ stranger ^^ and thus 
 equivalent to ^'hinsman,^^ as it is rendered on the 
 margin] shall go in unto hee, and take hee to him 
 
 TO WIFE, AND PEEFORM THE DUTY OF AN HUSBANd's BROTHER 
 
 UNTO HER. And it shall be that the first-born which 
 she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother 
 which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel. 
 And if the man like not to take his brother's wife, 
 then let his brother's wife go up to the gate unto 
 the elders, and say. My husband's brother refuseth 
 to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he 
 will not perform the duty of my husband's brother. 
 Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak 
 unto him : and if he stand to it, and say, I like not 
 to take her ; then shall his brother's wife come unto 
 him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe 
 from ofi" his foot, and spit before him, and shall 
 answer and say, So shall it be done unto that man 
 that will not build up his brother's house. And his 
 name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that 
 hath his shoe loosed." 
 
 The ceremony of loosing the shoe from off the foot 
 had reference to the renouncing of the claim of right 
 to the inheritance of the deceased, and the person of 
 his widow, and transferring it for some other to step
 
 Levirate C^istonis of Canaan and Moab. 1 9 
 
 into, as we learn from tlie book of Ruth, ch. iv. 7. 
 " Now this was the manner in former time in Israel 
 concerning redeeming and concerning changiiig'^ (or 
 transferring property), " for to confirm all things ; 
 a man plucked off his shoe, and gave it to his 
 neighbour: and this was a testimony in Israel." 
 In the tale of Tobit we find, very markedly, the 
 reference of the law to inheritance. In the history of 
 Euth the use of the ceremony also distinctly bore this 
 referencetotheinheritance of the deceased. " The kins- 
 man said unto Boaz,Buyit for thee. So he drew off his 
 shoe. And Boaz said unto the elders and unto all the 
 people. Ye are witnesses this day, that I have bought 
 all that was Elimelech's, and all that was Chilion's and 
 Mahlon's, of the hand of Naomi. Moreover, Ruth 
 the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased 
 to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead 
 upon his inheritance." This custom of pulling off the 
 shoe gave the name of Chalitzah to the law and custom 
 observed in the case of a man's rejecting the childless 
 widow's claim of him as next kinsman. The claim 
 of the widow, in the case specified, to the next 
 kinsman of her deceased husband, may be traced to 
 the custom of ages long preceding the Mosaic legisla- 
 tion ; and in the practice of the nations of Canaan 
 and Moab no bar seems to have been interposed on 
 account of any degree of nearness of consanguinity 
 to the deceased. The family of the patriarch Judah, 
 and in some degree that patriarch himself, though 
 not equally with Reuben, became infected with 
 the moral atmosphere of Canaan. Two of his sons 
 were early cut off for their gross moral corrup- 
 tion. His daughter-in-law, on the death of her 
 husband, laid claim to his next brother, then to the
 
 20 The Levirate Lazv ; Historical Instances. 
 
 next, and, failing Mm, eventually to lier fatlier-in-law 
 as nearest kinsman of the deceased, which she 
 accomplished by a deliberate stratagem, marking at 
 once the absence of every scruple from her own 
 Canaanite mind, and the shamefully relaxed morals 
 of Judah. But the remaining conduct of Judah 
 showed that he regarded such a union as distinctly 
 unlawful in his own case, and he had previously 
 become doubtful of it in the case of his son, the 
 brother of the deceased. In like manner the Moabite 
 daughters-in-law of Naomi, by the custom of their 
 country, would have understood that they were 
 entitled to claim without reproach the other sons of 
 their mother-in-law, if others there had been, to 
 take the place of their deceased husbands ; though 
 in the sequel of the same history we shall find that 
 in Israel the point was regarded otherwise. The law 
 had, no doubt, some remote origin in the early 
 patriarchal times ; but the moral limitations under 
 which it had then existed had been gradually relaxed 
 iu the customs of the corrupt nations, among whom 
 no barrier of kindred or consanguinity was at all 
 regarded. Not only Scripture ^ but the heathen 
 writers testify to this utter dissolution of manners 
 having prevailed among them ^ The law of Moses 
 reintroduced the holy limitations of domestic virtue, 
 but it did so with a certain adaptation to the con- 
 
 « Levit. xviii. 24, 26. 28 ; xx. 23. 
 
 ^ Euripides makes Hermione reproach the Asiatics with it: — 
 
 TOiovTOV irav to /SdplSapov yivo<s' 
 irarrjp t€ Ovyarpl Trats re fxrjTpl fxtyvvTaL 
 Kopr] T ctSeA-^w." — Eurip. Androin. 173. 
 
 Xanthus, quoted by Clement of Alexandria, affirms these prac- 
 tices to have been authorized by the opinions and example of the 
 Persian Magi. — Clem. Alex. Strom, iii. 0pp. p. 431, A.
 
 Ruth. — The Kmsman nearer than Boaz. 21 
 
 stitution of society existing at the time. Tlie laws 
 of inlieritance caused tlie first application to be made 
 to the husband's next of kin; but he not only was 
 exempt from taking her, he dared not take her if he was 
 within the prohibited degrees. There is no instance 
 in Scripture history of this law having been inter- 
 preted or acted on in Israel in a manner that would 
 involve any violation of the laws of the eighteenth 
 chapter of Leviticus. If the word ''brother" in the 
 Levirate law of Deut. xxv. 5 meant specially the 
 own-brother, the son of the same parents, then by 
 w^hat right or colour of right did Ruth lay claim to 
 Boaz ? He was not her deceased husband's own 
 brother. He was not even her husband's nearest 
 kinsman. Yet he was claimed as being probably 
 the nearest not within the forbidden degrees. The 
 course of the history of the transaction justifies this 
 opinion. Boaz at once recognized the claim of Ruth, 
 but said, "Howbeit there is a kinsman nearer than I." 
 It was necessary under the Levirate law, on account 
 of the rights of inheritance, that the nearer kinsman 
 should be first applied to, even if it were unlaw^ful 
 for him to take the woman. And when the nearer 
 kinsman was applied to, and asked if he would 
 redeem the inheritance, he declared himself willing 
 to do so ; but when apprised that he must take it at 
 the hand of Ruth, that is, by marrying her as the 
 wife of the deceased, he replied, " I cannot kedeem 
 
 IT FOR MYSELF, LEST I MAR MINE OWN INHERITANCE : re- 
 deem thou my right to thyself; for I cannot redeem 
 it." And why should he suppose himself to be marring 
 his own inheritance by taking an addition to his 
 inheritance at the hand of Ruth, when that addition 
 would certainly pass away from him if he did not 
 take it at her hand ? If be was within the forbidden
 
 22 Levirate Law. — Evidence of the Mis/ma. 
 
 degrees, the reason is intelligible from the denounced 
 penalty, " He shall be childless," which applied not 
 only in the case of taking an own-brother's wife, 
 but also in the case of taking an uncle's ® ; and 
 probably, therefore, might be anticipated in the 
 parallel case of the marriage of a nephew's wife by 
 an uncle ; which last, or something analagous, may 
 have been the relation in this instance. 
 
 The evidence afforded by the Jewish Mishna, or 
 body of their traditionary law, is in accordance with 
 what has been said. The twenty-second book of the 
 Mishna is entitled ''Yebamoth," as treating of the 
 precept of Yehoom (that is, the obhgation of marrying 
 the widow of a childless deceased brother), and of 
 the ceremony of Ghalitzah, or the taking off of the 
 shoe of the recusant brother-in-law by the widow, 
 with the cases arising under these according to Deut. 
 XXV. 5 — 11. Throughout the treatise it is observable, 
 in the first place, that the general names of " sister- 
 in-law" and ''brother-in-law" are applied to the 
 parties, in whatever relation of kindred they stand 
 to each other, many degrees of which are treated of ; 
 and also, that the general name of "brother" is 
 applied to the kinsman of the deceased husband, in 
 whatever degree related. A careful attention to this 
 is necessary to prevent confusion where the word 
 '' brother" is introduced in its stricter sense. It is 
 further to be noticed that the name of " rivals " is 
 applied to the several wives of one man. 
 
 In their introduction to this book of the Mishna, 
 in the English translation executed by them, Mr. 
 De Sola and Mr. Raphall (both of them Jews, and 
 following here a prefatory tract of Maimonides their 
 commentator) have remarked that " when circum- 
 » Levit. XX. 20, 21.
 
 Evidence from the Mishna. 23 
 
 stances exist wliicli would render sucli marriage 
 unlawful; as, for instance, if the parties were related 
 to each other within the degree of consanguinity 
 prohibited by the Holy Law to intermarry, the 
 precept of Yeboom is superseded, and even the 
 ceremony of Chalitzah is unnecessary;" and "that 
 when the brother-in-law cannot marry the widow on 
 account of near afiinity, he may not marry any of 
 the other wives of his deceased brother, who in the 
 technical term of the Mishna are called rivals ^" 
 In the first section of the first chapter of this 
 
 ° " Secundum fundameutum est, Si mortuus fuerit alicujus frater 
 et relinquerit uxorem, haec mulier illicita est fratribus, aut uni ex 
 fratribus qui obligati sunt ad inueudum levirationem aut ad dan- 
 dum calceum extralieudum, exempli gratia, si uxor mortui mariti 
 fuerit filia fratris vivi, aut soror uxoris ejus, hie frater, cui mulier 
 haec prohibita est propter incestum, non inibit cum ea levira- 
 tionem, eo quod scriptum est Levit. xviii. 17, 18. Et Deut. xxv. 
 5 dicit perinde ac si dixisset. Quod tibi dixi Levir ejus veniet ad 
 earn, intelligi debet quando soror fuerit uxoris tu^ Non capies ad 
 afficiendum illam angustid; et hinc etiam plures incestus 
 SORORIS UXORIS DOCEMUS." R. M. filius Maimou, ap. Mi&clma, 
 edit. Surenhus. vol. iii. p. 1. The last words here show that 
 Maimonides did not understand the words, " a wife to her sister " 
 as applying distinctively and exclusively to a wife's sister; other- 
 wise how should he speak of plures incestus, " several forbidden 
 degrees," applying to that one relation ? Plainly he takes the 
 soi^or uxoris simply as meaning the " fellow wife," taken " one 
 with the other," referring to the cases prohibited on account of 
 consanguinity to the wife, Levit. xviii. 17. So also Rabbi Ob. 
 De Bartenora takes it not as confined to one case, but in com • 
 menting on the rule, Quindecim mulieres liherant cemulas earum^ he 
 says, "Ut Scriptura dicit Levit. xviii. 18 : ubi non erat necesse 
 dicere rri^i^, "super illam," nisi ad docendum nos, quod etsi leviratio 
 ejus sit ea de qua dicitur Deut. xxv. o, si fuerit mulier cum sorore, 
 non illam sumet : idem intelligendum est de reliqdis con- 
 SANGUINITATIONIBUS sive scortationibus impudicis qu£e merentur 
 poenam excisionis." It is to be observed that the consanguinity 
 spoken of in this passage is, or includes, consanguinity to the wife, 
 that is, affinity to the husband, such as exists to a deceased wife's 
 sister, mother, or daughter.
 
 24 Evidence from the Mis /ma, 
 
 book of the Mishna, fifteen classes of women are 
 specified, who, in consequence of being witliin the 
 forbidden degrees, are released, and release their 
 *' rivals," and the " rivals " of these ad infinitum, 
 from the obligations of Chalitzah and Yeboom. 
 These are, — 1. Wliere the widow of the deceased 
 is the daugJiter of the '' brother " (that is, where 
 the nearest kinsman, called in the terms of this law 
 '^ brother,'^ of the deceased, was her own father). 
 2. '^Yhere she is his daughter's daughter; or, 3. his 
 sons daughter, 4. Where she is his stejJ -daughter 
 (daughter of the so called '' brother's" wife). 5 and 
 6. Where she is his wife's granddaughter, whether 
 daughter of her daughter or of her son. 7. Where 
 the widow is mother -in-latv of the " brother," or 
 nearest kinsman ; or, 8 and 9. The mother of his 
 mother-in-law or of his father-in-law. 10. Where 
 she is his own sister; or 11, his mother's sister ; or 
 12, his ivife's sister, 13. Where she is the widow 
 OF HIS uterine brother ; or, 14, of a " brother " who 
 had not been contemporary with him (that is, who 
 died before the now nearest kinsman was born). 
 15. Where she is his daughter -in-lmv (that is, where 
 the deceased husband's " brother," so called, or next 
 kinsman, was his father). 
 
 These cases show that the word " brother," in 
 its general use in this law, is to be taken ^ as co- 
 
 ^ The first case given is where the deceased husband's "brother" 
 was the widow's father. A misunderstanding of this may have 
 contributed to the monstrous error of the later Jews, that a man 
 was permitted to marry his brother's daughter. But no such 
 inference can justly be drawn from it ; the fact being that, in the 
 other cases put, it appears that the word " brother " means, not 
 strictly " own-brother," but " kinsman." As, for instance, in the 
 tenth, wliere the widow is the own-sister of her deceased husband's 
 ^' brother," Avhich she could not be if her deceased husband and he
 
 Evidence frojn the Mishna. 25 
 
 extensive witli '* kinsman" or "relation;" and in 
 all these fifteen specified cases marriage was for- 
 bidden, and even tlie ceremony of Clialitzah super- 
 seded as unnecessary. It will be observed that the 
 case of the " uterine brother," the son of the same 
 mother, is among them ; and that the prohibition 
 of marriage in these cases was construed by the 
 Rabbis as extending not only to the widow, but 
 also to her "rivals," that is, to those who had been 
 wives with her of the same man, and even to tlieir 
 " rivals." But this last appears to be a traditional 
 addition to the Mosaic law. 
 
 In the third section of the same chapter of the 
 Mishna there are specified six degrees of relation- 
 ship, rigidly prohibited, in which, while the women 
 could not claim, or be married to, the deceased 
 husband's "brother" (so called), it is permitted to 
 the "brother" to marry their "rivals" after the 
 decease of their husbands. 
 
 Last of these six prohibited degrees is named 
 the wife of his hr oilier hy the father'' s side. Hence 
 it appears that she who had been the wife of a 
 
 were own-brothers ; in the eleventh, where she is supposed to be 
 his mother's sister, which on the same supposition was impossible; 
 and in the fifteenth, where the deceased husband's relative, called 
 " brother " in terms of the law, was his fatJier, and her fatlier-in- 
 laiv. Thus these fifteen cases of the " brother " begin with her 
 own father, and end with her husband's father. Every one must 
 perceive that even if the later Jews had not greatly erred in sup- 
 posing the marriage of uncle and niece to be permitted by tlie law 
 of God, yet the first case here put could not possibly be restricted 
 to that ; for even if the kinsman who otherwise would have married 
 the widow under this law were not the husband's own-brother, he 
 still must be forbidden if he was her father. And that he was not 
 there supposed to be her husband's own brother appears expressly 
 in the thirteenth case, where that degree is specially forbidden.
 
 26 Evidence from the Mishna, 
 
 man's brother by the father's side, was acknowledged 
 to be herself within the degrees of relationship 
 rigidly ijroliihited to Jmn, and could not be married 
 to him by Yeboom on her husband dying childless : 
 but her "rivals" in any other marriage might be 
 married to him after the death of their husband ; 
 which even they could not, if her husband had been 
 uterine brother ^ 
 
 It will be observed that the Mishna is here cited 
 simply as historical evidence, to illustrate the 
 meaning of the Word of God, and not as authori- 
 tative in itself But in regard to this special law it 
 is of great value, because the expulsion of the Jews 
 from their inheritances and country, and their 
 
 2 The ignorance of tliese facts, and of the whole principle of the 
 Jewish law on this point, which is exhibited in a tract on Levit. 
 xviii., by the late Dr. McCaul, is such as we should not have 
 expected. I sincerely regret to refer to this, but as the tract has, 
 from its respected author and its own pretension, obtained weight 
 with many, it is necessary that its flimsy nature should not be 
 passed over, even in deference to its lamented author. Dr. McCaul 
 refers more than once (p. 34) to the law of Deut. xxv. 1, in terms 
 implying that he interpreted the word " brother " in that place to 
 mean strictly the man's own full brother, born of the same parents, 
 contrary to the Jewish law and the evidence of facts. In a sub- 
 sequent tract, in reply to a speech of Vice-Chancellor Sir W. 
 Page Wood, now Lord Chancellor Hatherley, he does not correct 
 his error, though he had in the interim glanced at, and partially 
 quotes, for a controversial purpose, a passage of the Mishna, which, 
 if he had read it, would have obliged him in honour and truth to 
 correct himself. But instead of this, he repeats his error (p. 72) 
 with the same perfect unconsciousness ! It may less be wondered 
 at that similar ignorance should exist among many of the laity, 
 and among some of the clergy, or even dignitaries of the Church, 
 too much engaged in the routine of their practical duties to have 
 had opportunity duly to examine the matter, and some of whom 
 may have received their status through the influence of persons 
 careful to favour the error.
 
 Evidence from the Mishna. 2 J 
 
 subjection to tlie laws of the countries in whicli 
 they became scattered, in process of time must 
 have brought this law practically in a manner into 
 disuse ; and this circumstance confines the evidence 
 mainly to the tradition of the ages preceding their 
 dispersion from Palestine. That tradition it was a 
 main object of the Mishna to preserve. In regard 
 to marriage with a deceased wife's sister its testi- 
 mony as to principle is not quite conclusive. In 
 repeated instances it contains the prohibition of the 
 marriage of a wife's sister during the life time of the 
 former, where, but for that relationship, the latter 
 might have claimed by Yeboom ; thus at least making 
 it clear that the law of Yeboom did not override 
 
 THE LAW or THE PROHIBITED DEGREES. In the foUowiug 
 
 instance in the seventh section of the third chapter 
 of the book of Yehamoth it recognizes an indelible 
 character in the obstacle arising from that pro- 
 hibition, where it had at one time existed as a 
 hindrance to Yeboom. ''When of three 'brothers ' 
 {brothers in the phraseology of this law, that is, 
 hinsmen), two are married to two sisters and one to 
 a stranger : if one of them who married the sisters 
 died, and he who had married the stranger marries 
 the widow, and then the wife of the second ' brother ' 
 dies, and also the third ' brother,' theii the widoiv 
 will he for ever prohibited to the second or surviving 
 * brother/ because she was for some time prohibited to 
 him \_as his luife's sister'].'' And again in the ninth 
 section : " When of two ' brothers ' (hinsmen, called 
 brothers within the meaning of this law ^) married 
 
 ^ The use of the word " brothers " in regard to this law may be 
 illustrated from the Mishna by a passage in the seventh section of 
 the fourth chapter of the treatise Yehamoth : " When a person
 
 28 Evidence from the Mishna, 
 
 to two sisters, one dies, and afterwards the loife of 
 the surviving brother also dies, then lie may never 
 marry his 'brother's' widow; because there was a 
 time when she was prohibited to him" [namely during 
 the life of his wife her sister]. " Haec est prohibita 
 semper; quia illi prohibita erat unam horam." 
 But this principle, which if consistently followed 
 out would in all cases have forbidden marriage with 
 a deceased wife's sister (and it is indeed so for- 
 bidden by the Karaite Jews, in conformity with the 
 probable custom of earlier and better times), was, 
 in the times of the compilation of the Mishna, not 
 practically acted on to that extent ; and the con- 
 sequences showed themselves in the awakening of 
 illicit desires towards the sister, in the life time of 
 the wife ; as we find from the following legal maxim 
 of the Mishna {Yehamoth, c. xvi. § 10) : "A man 
 
 has received Chalitzah from his sister-in-law, he may not marry 
 her near relations, nor she his " [Rabbi Ob. De Bartenora explains 
 that this is on the same principle as if she had become his wife]. 
 " He may not marry her mother, nor her grandmother (whether her 
 mother's or her father's mother), her daughter, or granddaughter 
 (whether by son or daughter), or her sister while she is alive. 
 His brothers may marry her ; hut she may not marry his 
 father, nor his grandfather, whether his father^ s or mother' s father, 
 his son, his son's son, his brother, or his brother's son." 
 Here, under the general term " his brothers," are included all 
 his other kinsmen, as well as his father, his two grandfathers, his 
 son, son's son, his brother, and his bi^other's son, for these special 
 relations are expressly excepted, and are those before referred to 
 in the same section as the projnnqui, near relations, or near of kin. 
 The reader may verify these things for himself by reference to 
 " Eighteen Treatises from the Mishna," translated into English by 
 the Rev. D. A. De Sola and the Rev. M. J. Raphall, 8vo. 
 London, 1845, published by Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper. Or, if 
 he wish to refer to the original, with the Latin translation, he will 
 find the passages in the third volume of the edition of the Mishna 
 by Surenhusius, published at Amsterdam, in six vols, folio, 1 798.
 
 The Levirate Law^ a?id the Forbidden Degrees. 29 
 
 is not to be believed on his own assertion, when be 
 says, ' My wife died,' as it is possible lie may wish 
 to marry her sister." This singular maxim reminds 
 ns of other dangers. The life of the wife in time of 
 sickness may be much in the hand of her attendant 
 sister ; and it were undesirable that she should be 
 in the hand of a rival and destined successor, having 
 an intense and impassioned interest in her death. 
 In the case of the slow poisoning of a lady by 
 arsenic some years ago, for which the husband was 
 tried and acquitted, it came out on the evidence 
 that the moment the lady breathed her last, her 
 sister, who had been in attendance and was at the 
 bedside, threw her arms about the neck of the 
 bereaved widower. The act, however innocent, is 
 disagreeably suggestive. There were advertise- 
 ments at that time of the countries in which such 
 marriages might be lawfully celebrated, which misled 
 not a few. 
 
 The practice of polygamy and the permission of 
 divorce complicated the relationships of social life, 
 and have rendered the regulations contained in this 
 treatise of Yehamotli very numerous and intricate. 
 The effect of the law as regards " rivals," was to 
 increase greatly the number of those who were 
 within the forbidden degrees, and thus to put a 
 check on polygamy by its own operation in that 
 reactionary manner ; because so many of the women 
 with whom a man was brought into friendly rela- 
 tions were thus forbidden to him ; for let any one 
 reflect how many women were prohibited to a near 
 kinsman of such a man as Solomon; but the in- 
 stances which have been quoted are sufficient to 
 show that the construction which we have put on
 
 o The Levirate Lazu and the Forbidden Degrees, 
 
 the Mosaic law of Deut. xxv. 5 — 11 is justified 
 by tlie Mislma, and was fully and universally 
 accepted by tlie Jews at tlie date of its compila- 
 tion, however that construction may have been 
 lost sight of at a later period when long desuetude 
 had made its very principles forgotten. As in in- 
 terpreting any of our own laws we do not take 
 the general enunciation to be irrespective of the 
 " provided always," by which it is qualified and 
 restricted; so, in interpreting the Mosaic law, we 
 ought not to take the law authorizing the claim of 
 the childless widow upon her husband's "brother," 
 that is, hmsman, as irrespective of the express ex- 
 ception of the forbidden degrees, or meant to be 
 observed in violation of them. 
 
 Let the reader consider what monstrous conse- 
 quences would be involved if this principle were set 
 aside. We may take as a specimen two cases, not 
 imaginary, but which are put by the Rabbis and are 
 to be found in the same treatise of the Mishna. 
 1. Two "brothers" marry a woman and her 
 daughter, and the husband of the latter dies without 
 children : is the surviving brother required to take 
 to wife his brother's widow in this case, being the 
 daughter of his own wife ? 2. Two " brothers " 
 marry two full sisters, and one of the " brothers " 
 dies without issue : is the widow of the deceased 
 entitled to claim her husband's " brother," and thus 
 to become the " rival " of her living sister ? JSTo : in 
 both cases the law of forbidden degrees comes in. 
 But if in these cases, then in all others, and specially 
 in the case of a full brother's widow, as the Mishna 
 accordingly bears witness. 
 
 If there were any remaining doubt upon the
 
 Historical Testimony. — Johri the Baptist. 31 
 
 question of marriage with a deceased brotlier's 
 widow, it would be removed by the historical testi- 
 mony of Josephus, and the witness of John the 
 Baptist borne with his own blood. It is an ever 
 memorable fact tliat the latter sacrificed his life to 
 his faithfulness in bearing witness to Herod that 
 it was not lawful for him to have his brother 
 Philip's wife. Divorce had passed between Philip 
 and Herodias \ and marriage had taken place 
 between her and Herod'. The remonstrance of 
 John the Baptist was not founded on the imputation 
 of adultery. If a brother's wife had been no other- 
 wise forbidden than as any other man's wife, it 
 could scarcely have been maintained, as a general 
 proposition, that after divorce it was, according to 
 the Mosaic law, unlawful for Herod to marry her. 
 The testimony for which John suffered martyrdom 
 was not that he was living in adultery, but that the 
 marriage was incestuous ; ''It is not lawful for 
 thee to have thy brother^ s wife." Is, then, the testi- 
 mony of the blood of the martyred John the Baptist, 
 the chosen forerunner of our blessed Lord, to be 
 summarily set aside by men professing the name and 
 faith of Christians ? Will a minister of Christ con- 
 tinue to permit his name to be cited as sanctioning the 
 proposition that marriage with a deceased brother's 
 wife was lawful, and even commanded in a certain 
 case, and that therefore marriage with a deceased 
 wife's sister should be permitted, and that not merely 
 in the case where there are no children, but in all 
 cases ? 
 
 But if the circumstance that Philip, from whom 
 Herodias was divorced, was still alive, should be 
 
 * Josephus. * Mark xvi. 17.
 
 32 Historical Testimony. — Josephtis. 
 
 thought to diminish the weight of the argument 
 derived from the unquahfied declaration of John to 
 Herod, "It is not lawful for thee to have thy 
 brother's wife," in which he so plainly denounces 
 the union as incestuous, the testimony of the Jewish 
 historian, Josephus, here comes in to the same effect 
 in a very striking manner, by another instance in 
 which the brother was deceased. The case now 
 referred to is that of Archelaus and Glaphyra, and 
 is thus stated by the historian (Antiq., book xvii. 
 ch. xiii.) : '' Moreover he " [Archelaus son of Herod 
 the Great] " transgressed the law of our fathers, and 
 married Glaphyra, the daughter of Archelaus" [King 
 of Cappadocia], "who had been the wife of his 
 brother Alexander, which Alexander had three 
 children by her; while it was a thing detestable 
 
 AMONG THE JeWS TO MARRY THE BROTHER'S WIFE." 
 
 Alexander had been put to death by his father some 
 time before. The case is more fully related by the 
 same historian in his Jewish War (book ii. ch. vii.), 
 where the strong testimony of conscience in Gla- 
 phyra herself is presented in a remarkable dream of 
 hers, and in her death : " I cannot but think it 
 worthy to be recorded what dream Glaphyra, the 
 daughter of Archelaus, King of Cappadocia, had, who 
 had at first been wife to Alexander, who was brother 
 of Archelaus, concerning whom we have been dis- 
 coursing. This Alexander was the son of Herod 
 the king, by whom he was put to death, as we have 
 already related. This Glaphyra was married, after 
 his death, to Juba, King of Libya, and after his 
 death was returned home, and lived a widow with 
 her father. Then it was that Archelaus the ethnarch 
 saw her, and fell so deeply in love with her, that he
 
 The Herodian Family, 33 
 
 divorced Marianne wlio was then Ins wife, and mar- 
 ried her. When therefore she was come into Judea, 
 and had been there for a httle while, she thought 
 she saw Alexander stand by her, and that he said 
 to her, ' Thy marriage with the King of Libya 
 might have been sufficient for thee ; but thou wast 
 not contented with him, but hast returned again to 
 my family, to a third husband, and him^ thou im- 
 pudent woman, hast thou chosen for thine husband 
 who is my brother. However, I shall not overlook 
 the injury thou hast offered me ; I shall soon have 
 thee again, whether thou wilt or no.' Now Gla- 
 phyi-a hardly survived the narration of this dream 
 of hers two days." 
 
 The case is so much the stronger in these two 
 instances in the Herodian family, because Philip and 
 Herod Antipas, though both of them sons of Herod 
 the Great, were not fall brothers, being by different 
 mothers ; and because Alexander and Archelaus 
 also were not of the same mother, though sons of the 
 same father. It is plain, then, that it was not lawful 
 for brothers, whether the sons of the same father 
 or of the same mother, even though not of the same 
 parents on both sides, to marry the same woman in 
 succession, either during life, or after the death of 
 one of them. And we have seen accordingly that 
 the Mishna expressly treats this relationship as a 
 forbidden degree, debarring marriage by Yeboom, 
 both in the case of the wife of a deceased uterine 
 brother and of a brother on the father's side. Philo 
 also, in a passage above quoted, puts it unquahfiedly 
 among the forbidden degrees. 
 
 The incestuous tendencies of the Herodian family 
 were illustrated not in the violation of one forbidden 
 
 r
 
 34 T^Jie Herodian Family. 
 
 degree only. AYlien once tlie holy barriers have 
 been broken through, other restraints of the same 
 nature are less regarded, and the progress of demo- 
 ralization keeps pace with the wider range given to 
 the thoughts and desires of the heart. Where or 
 how the licence of guilt first began we know not, 
 but the fact appears that Herodias was the niece, 
 half-blood, both of Philip her first husband, from 
 whom she obtained divorce, and of Herod Antipas 
 her second husband; for she was the daughter of 
 Aristobulus, son of Herod the Great by Mariamne, 
 and brother of Alexander. The evil and danger 
 were not confined to that age. That the same, if not 
 a fuller, blood-relationship was disregarded, in his 
 second marriage, by a continental prince, who, by a 
 son of his former marriage, became nearly connected 
 with England, has been impartially pointed out by our 
 most gracious Queen, in a note under her own hand^, 
 which may serve as a faithful warning to her sub- 
 jects, especially to those who now are pressing for a 
 partial opening of the floodgates. It is instructive 
 also that John the Baptist does not fix upon this 
 blood-relationship as the ground of his censure of 
 Herod, but upon the fact of Herodias having been 
 his brother Philip's wife. The former degree was 
 forbidden by implication and analogy of principle \ 
 
 ® " The new duchess was his own niece." — " Early Years of the 
 Prince Consort," note, p. 88. 
 
 ^ Concerning "thy son's' daughter" and "thy daughter's 
 daughter," it is written, " Theirs is thine own nakedness." This 
 principle plainly includes the " daughter " herself, though not 
 named, in the same prohibition. And by parity of reason, it must 
 hold respecting tlvj brother'' s daughters, that theirs is " thy brother's 
 nakedness," which is forbidden to thee ; Levit. xviii. 10. 16. 
 Moreover, a nephew is forbidden to marry his aunt (Levit. xviii.
 
 Results 0/ the preceding Evidence. 35 
 
 but the latter expressly. The ch^cumstance illus- 
 trates the remark of Philo, which has been quoted 
 above, that " the intermarriages of strangers give 
 rise to new relationships not inferior to those of 
 blood." 
 
 It has been necessary to present these facts in 
 considerable detail because of the false light in 
 which prevalent misapprehensions of them have led 
 many to regard the subject. They give us the 
 following definite results. 
 
 1. The general principle is expressly laid down, 
 
 that THE NEAR KINDRED OF A MAn's ^T:FE ARE FORBIDDEN 
 
 TO HIM ; and it is because of this principle that his 
 wife's daughter and granddaughter are forbidden to 
 him, the penalty of his taking one or other of whom 
 along with his wife was that both he and they should 
 be burned. 
 
 2. The SISTER of his wife is beyond all doubt one 
 of HER NEAR KIN, in the sense in which that expres- 
 sion is used in relation to the law of kindred ; just 
 as much as a man's brother is beyond all question 
 
 11. 14); but uncle and niece are related in the same degree as 
 aunt and nephew, and therefore must be held forbidden. 
 
 The later Jews fell into error in supposing that because the con- 
 sanguinity of an uncle and his " brother's daughter " or " sister's 
 daughter " is not named by Moses, it is therefore permitted in 
 marriage ; and Maimonides indorses the opinion. Here the source 
 of their error is their failing to discern the principle and spirit, 
 further than is laid down in the letter of the prohibitions. Holy 
 Scripture furnishes no instance, of such a marriage if we except 
 the Herodiau family. But on the other hand, Maimonides recog- 
 nizes unqualifiedly the prohibition of marriage with a brother's 
 wife, and with a wife's sister ; and the reason which he assigns is 
 one not based on rivalry or vexation, but on propinquity. — 
 Maimonides' " Reasons of the Laws of Moses," Townsend's Trans- 
 lation, p. 318. 
 
 C 2
 
 ^6 Results of the preceding Evidence. 
 
 one of his near kin, or liis mother's sister ''his 
 mother's near kinswoman ^" 
 
 3. There is nothing in Scripture to limit the pro- 
 hibition of marrying a wife's sister to the period of 
 the wife's Hfe time, any more than to hmit the pro- 
 hibition of marrying the wife's daughter or grand- 
 daughter ; the hmitation, if it be one at all, being 
 introduced in reference to them, and not to the 
 sister. But viewed, as it must be, in reference to 
 them, it is to be regarded more probably, not as a 
 limitation, but an extension of the prohibition to the 
 whole of life, as opposed to the mere continuance 
 of the nuptial bond, which might have been ter- 
 minated even by divorce. There is nothing suf- 
 ciently to prove that it was the ivife's life which was 
 the measure given. The expression ('' as long as 
 she livetli ") may refer to the daughter. But if it 
 be taken as a limitation, it is to be regarded with 
 reference to the dreadful nature of the penalty, and 
 not as a licence of the crime, the abhorred atrocity 
 of which would no doubt be much aggravated by 
 being perpetrated during the life of the wife her 
 mother, but which would retain its incestuous cha- 
 racter though she were dead. The ancient con- 
 struction put on the law, in the passage quoted from 
 Philo, takes this view. 
 
 4. A brother's wife is expressly named as within 
 the forbidden degrees of relationship, and this was 
 meant, and was understood, absolutely, and without 
 reservation of any special case. She had been made 
 one flesh with her husband, and was for ever for- 
 bidden to his brother. Tliere is no instance of any 
 
 ** Levit. xviii. 13.
 
 Results of the Evidence. — Question not Physical. 37 
 
 sanction given to the contrary in Israel under the 
 law of Moses. 
 
 5. Although a wife's sister is not expressly named 
 among the prohibitions, yet the identity of the prin- 
 ciple must be recognized, as soon as the rights and 
 responsibilities of the two sexes were placed on a 
 just footing of equality. While slavery and poly- 
 gamy existed this might not in all cases be possible. 
 The law of Moses viewed the question from the male 
 side. It requires now to be looked at also from the 
 female side ; for " in Chinst Jesus there is neither 
 male nor female, neither bond nor free." Equal 
 duties and responsibilities of holiness lie upon us all. 
 Now the successive relation of two sisters to the 
 same man as husband is the same with that of two 
 brothers to* the same woman as wife. The hJood- 
 relationship between the sisters is the same as 
 between the brothers ; the bond of the marriage 
 union constitutes the same affinity in each case. If 
 there must be a revulsion of the holy moral feelings 
 and duties of a brother, in taking her who had been 
 his brother's wife, equally there must be a revulsion 
 of the holy moral feelings and duties of a sister, in 
 taking the place of her sister in the marriage bed 
 with him who had been her sister's husband. And 
 this, be it observed, is a moral question, not a mere 
 question of physical capabilities. We are told that 
 there are those who never are conscious of adopting 
 the holy affections of brother and sister towards 
 brother and sister in law ; and whose moral nature 
 suffers no revulsion in substituting the conjugal for 
 the fraternal relation. But ought the law of God, 
 and the holy circle of the sentiments and affections 
 of home, spreading a hallowed protection around the
 
 3 8 Results of the Evidence. — The Patriarchs. 
 
 freedom of its intercourse, and giving mutual trust 
 and confidence to its several relations, to be violated 
 for tlie sake of these ? Tliis subject has sometimes 
 been treated on grounds unworthy of man's moral 
 nature, as if consanguinity alone were to be regarded, 
 and that because of the physical consequences as 
 affecting the offspring. These are undoubtedly 
 important ; but they form the lowest ground, fit to 
 be dealt with principally rather by cattle-breeders 
 than by the fathers and brothers of British Christian 
 society. The cattle-breeder might discover no 
 physical impediment to marriage with a step- 
 daughter or a step-mother; but the law of God 
 denoutiuos such a union as incestuous, though there 
 be affinity only, and not blood relationship, between 
 the parties. 
 
 6. The delivery of the law constituted a marked 
 epoch in this question. No argument can be deduced 
 from the latitude of conduct which existed in the 
 patriarchal ages, to prove that it is equally allowable 
 for us. Abraham called his wife his sister, and says 
 that she was the daughter of his father, but not the 
 daughter of his mother. But as the Hebrews apply 
 the name of " father " to grandfather as well, and of 
 " daughter " to granddaughter, and their language 
 has no other mode of expressing the relation of 
 grandfather and granddaughter, except by a peri- 
 phrasis which in this case would have been double 
 and inconvenient, it is possible that she was really 
 his cousin half-blood. Josephus so far adopts this 
 view as to make her the sister (perhaps only kins- 
 woman) of Lot, who was his brother Haran's son. 
 And in the Book of Genesis " it is remarkable that 
 ' Gen. xi. 31.
 
 Results of the Evidence. — The Patriarchs. 39 
 
 she is called not the daughter, but only the " daugliteV' 
 in-lato " of Terah, Abraham's father. And Lot is 
 called Terah' s '' son's son," but she is not called his 
 " son's daughter." There is indeed no reason for 
 the adverse opinion, unless the mere wish to crimi- 
 nate Abraham, or to lower to that level the moral 
 code of the patriarchs, is to be accepted as such; 
 for Isaac also applied the name "sister" to his 
 wife, though only a cousin ; and no doubt the word 
 '' sister " was conventionally open to be used and 
 understood with that latitude, just as " Jacob told 
 Rachel that he was her father's brother^," without 
 surely the slightest intention to deceive, and without 
 any imputation of using language incorrectly, though 
 he was really her father's nephew; and Laban also 
 uses the same language, saying to Jacob, " Thou art 
 my brother." In like manner Lot is called Abra- 
 ham'sbrother^ : and again, we read in the First Book 
 of Chronicles (ch. xxiii. 21, 22), that " the sons of 
 Malhi " were " Eleazar and Kish. And Eleazar died, 
 and had no sons, but daughters ; and their brothers 
 (aSeX^ol) the sons of Kish took them ^" And so 
 also we read of the "brethren" and "sisters" of 
 the Lord Jesus. The imputations therefore cast 
 upon Abraham and upon Isaac have nothing to sus- 
 tain them. Be this as it may, it is not essential to 
 our present inquiry. Jacob certainly had two sisters 
 
 ^ Gen. xxix. 12. 15; xxAiii. 2. ^ Gen. xiii. 8; xiv. 14. 
 
 ^ This passage, which is not from the oldest book of the Scrip- 
 ture, puts in a proper and natural light a question of the learned 
 Professor Eadie as to the brethren of our Lord, in which he asks, 
 " Again, if the brothers were merely cousins, how could they be 
 called dScA-^ot ?" In saying that the word is not so used in the 
 New Testament the Professor assumes the point, and is certainly 
 in error.
 
 40 Law of proJiibited Degrees still bmdifig. 
 
 palmed upon him, wholly contrary to his own inten- 
 tion, and in violation of his contract ; but the fact 
 illustrates the state of moral opinion and practice 
 among his kindred in Padan-Aram. " Before the 
 law," St. Paul argues, " sin was in the world; but 
 sin is not imputed where there is no law." But the 
 delivery of the law constituted a new epoch. The 
 progressive corruption of mankind had reached at 
 Sodom, and in the nations of Canaan, a development 
 revolting even to nature. But if we sin against 
 superior light, it shall be more tolerable for Sodom 
 and Gomorrah, or for Tyre and Sidon, in the day of 
 judgment, than for us. It was full time that God 
 should intervene for the regulation of the social life 
 of man, and the correction of its intolerable evils : 
 and though it was not at that time practicable to 
 place things at once on a perfect footing, yet the law 
 was a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ. The law 
 made nothing perfect, but the bringmg in of a better 
 hope did. 
 
 7. The Christian dispensation advanced yet fur- 
 ther towards the recovery of man from the ruins of 
 the fall. Marriage was presented in the holiness of 
 God's original purpose, the union of one man with 
 one woman in holy and inseparable love. Polygamy 
 was first forbidden in the Christian ministry, and 
 gradually extinguished among the Christian people. 
 Christianity advanced to higher and stricter holiness, 
 but it did not relax one jot or one tittle of the moral 
 law. 
 
 It has nevertheless been made a question by 
 some, whether the law of the prohibited degrees of 
 kindred and affinity in the Book of Leviticus is 
 binding upon Christians ! A question the very 
 
 I
 
 Christiaiiity binds equally on both Sexes. 41 
 
 putting of wliich may be affirmed to sliow a very 
 deplorable state of moral and spiritual blindness, 
 for any one who professes to believe in revealed 
 religion. What ! can those crimes, and that moral 
 turpitude of incest, for which the land " spewed 
 out" the Canaanites, be allowable for Christians? 
 Is that, in their opinion, the glorious Hberty with 
 which Christ has made us free ? Would they throw 
 back the world three thousand four hundred years ? 
 The Lord God of heaven will not hold them guiltless 
 of the attempt which they make towards it. The 
 effect of Christianity upon the question of the pro- 
 hibited degrees is this, that whereas, under the 
 preparatory and imperfect dispensation of Moses, 
 woman continued depressed, and the question was 
 viewed from the male side, now she has been 
 elevated to her true position, and invested with her 
 rights and responsibilities, so that the question 
 must necessarily be viewed no longer from the male 
 side exclusively, but also from the female. It is 
 not lawful for woman to disregard the- ties of blood 
 relationship to her sister, any more than for man 
 to disregard the ties of blood relationship to his 
 brother. The woman has received, together with 
 freedom of will, responsibility for her conduct. She 
 is not disposed of by man irrespectively of her 
 choice, but is protected in her Christian liberty. 
 This elevation of position has brought with it 
 corresponding equality of obligations. And the 
 relation of two sisters in succession to one and the 
 same man as husband, is not different in its moral 
 character from the relation of two brothers to \\\q 
 same woman as wife. Even by tho law of Moses, 
 though the question was viewed from the male side,
 
 42 Tlie Wifes Near of Kin Fo7^bidde7i. 
 
 and the responsibility laid on tlie man, the principle 
 was not kept back, though this particular relation 
 was not specified, but the wife's near kin are 
 expressly indicated as forbidden to the man 
 (Levit. xviii. 17) ; and the tendency and direction 
 of the legislation are manifest in themselves, and 
 are made more clearly manifest in Christ, who 
 supplemented and fulfilled the law, and under whose 
 kingdom male and female are placed on an impartial 
 footing of justice and responsibility. In regard to 
 the omission of the specification of this particular 
 degree of affinity, it should be observed that the 
 law of Moses occasionally lays down principles 
 without enumerating in detail all their special appli- 
 cations. The principle that the wife's near kin are 
 forbidden is laid down as furnishing the reason why 
 her daughter and granddaughter are forbidden, and 
 nothing whatever is said to exempt the wife's sister 
 from the operation of it. In like manner, when the 
 principle that a man's own near kin are forbidden 
 is laid down, we do not except some cases which are 
 for some reason, as perhaps their very obviousness, 
 passed over and not specified; as, for instance, a 
 man's brother's daughter, his own mother's brother's 
 wife, nay, a man's own daughter. On the strictest 
 interpretation of " near of kin " it has not been 
 denied that it includes not only the direct ascending 
 and descending line, but also laterally brother and 
 sister. The wife's sister is her nearest of kin laterally. 
 I am not aware that by any of the disputants it 
 has ever been denied that that relation is within 
 the degrees designated by the phrase ])ropinquitas 
 carnis, " the remainder of her flesh," " flesh of her 
 flesh," or " near of kin," in its most restricted legal
 
 Wifes Sister, her Near of Kin. 43 
 
 sense. Nor could it be denied, seeing it is specially 
 declared, in the case of a " mother's sister,'' that she 
 is "thy mother's near hinsivoman'' (Levit. xviii. 13). 
 It is necessary also to include the wife's sister's 
 daughter among the near kindred of the wife, 
 because the blood of the sister descends in her 
 daughter, and is her own just as much as a man's 
 own blood is recognized in his son's daughter, or 
 his daughter's daughter. Levit. xviii. 10. The 
 Mishna accordingly places the "brother's son" 
 among the forbidden degrees of consanguinity 
 (Yebamoth iv. 7, quoted above, p. 28). And the 
 brother's or sister's daughter is in the same degree 
 of consanguinity. The wife's sister's daughter is 
 therefore the wife's near kinswoman, within the 
 strict meaning, and so not permitted to the hus- 
 band*. 
 
 But it is erroneous to argue, as Dr. McCaul and 
 some others, that to forbid the wife's near kin to 
 
 * In the ancient Ecclesiastical Canons of the second and third 
 centuries, commonly called Apostolical Canons, probably, as has 
 been thought, collected by Clement of Alexandria, and afterwards, 
 perhaps from confusion of the name, erroneously attributed to 
 Clement of Rome, but which are certainly aute-Niceue, we find the 
 following : — 'O Svo dSeA^a? ayayofievos, rj dSeX^tS^i/, ov Bvvarai cTvat 
 KXrjpLKos. " He who has married two sisters, or the sister's 
 daughter, cannot be admitted to the clerical order." — Cotelerii 
 Patres Apost. vol. i. p. 44. The restriction is the same which 
 St. Paul puts upon polygamy. 
 
 As the niece, dSeX^tS^, is here mentioned in connexion with the 
 wife's sister, I have thought it fair to indicate that primary con- 
 nexion in the rendering, though the word means either brother's 
 or sister's daughter. In the collection of the Roman Cauou Law 
 these Canons are printed, but the word is there erroneously ren- 
 dered consohrina. — Corp. Jur. Canonici, pars prima, fol. Lugd. 1571, 
 col. 2064. Long after the date of these Apostolical Canons, St. 
 Augustine, bishop of Hippo, tells us that in his days marriage with a
 
 44 Moral and Domestic Revolittioii threatened. 
 
 the husband, in consequence of his personally 
 becoming one flesh with his wife, is to establish a 
 similar relationship between the brothers of the 
 husband and sisters of the wife in such wise as to 
 forbid the near kindred of his wife not only to the 
 husband, but to his brother also ! In the Canons 
 of the Greek Church, indeed, the error seems to have 
 been fallen into of treating the alliance of families 
 which takes place by the marriage of one member 
 of each as if it were an actual fusion of the families. 
 But the fact that the two persons who marry become 
 thereby " one flesh," while it renders the wife a 
 member of the husband's family and the husband 
 reciprocally a member of the wife's, does not in- 
 corporate all the members and relations of the 
 families into one another. Only the two become one 
 flesh. The aflinity with the husband's family is 
 limited to his wife : the affinity with the wife's family 
 is limited to her husband : and in their children it 
 
 passes into BLOOD-EELATIONSniP TO BOTH FAMILIES. But 
 
 the husband's brother has no relationship of affinity 
 to the wife's sister, unless indeed he marries her, 
 which is fully permitted by the Divine law. 
 
 The moral relations, affections, and duties of 
 domestic life are among the holiest of all things 
 under God; and by a public act to declare that to 
 be holy which He hath made unholy, and to sanction 
 the use of His holy Name to bless it, would be such an 
 act of insult to the Throne of Heaven as may pro- 
 voke the Divine indignation, and bring down judg- 
 
 consobrina, or cousin, was not forbidden either by Divine or human 
 law, but was of rare occurrence, and considered inexpedient. — De 
 Civ. Dei, XV. 16. 2. This of itself may show the falsity of the 
 rendering in the Roman Canon Law above ]"emarked upon.
 
 Consequences to be apprehended. 45 
 
 ment upon tlie land. It belioves men, therefore, to 
 deal reverently in matters wliicli affect the holy and 
 righteous revelation of His will ; and not to seek by 
 canvassing by paid agency, and wilfulness for 
 private ends, to alter that holy constitution of 
 domestic hfe which He hath ordained and blessed. 
 The innovation which has been proposed at present 
 is the leaven which, if introduced, will soon leaven 
 the whole lump ; and all the relations of holy 
 domestic life must be affected by it. Hitherto we 
 have gone on a clear principle. God has declared a 
 man and his wife to be one flesh ; and, being made 
 one flesh, we admit the sister of the one to be re- 
 ceived in frank and holy confidence as the sister also 
 of the other. A hloocl relationshi}) on both sides is 
 established to the children of the marriage. But 
 men, and, 1 blush to say, some women, are seeking 
 to annul the whole principle of Christian morals 
 which is based upon that declaration of God, that 
 " they two shall be one flesh." It has been avowed 
 that the whole law of affinity is struck at. The 
 present aim is but the first instalment. The niece, 
 the brother's wife, come next in order, and have 
 been specified. God only knows what next; but 
 this is manifest, that a j\[OEAL eevolution is threatened 
 which will be felt in every home in England. For it 
 is about to be declared that a man and his wife shall 
 not be one flesh, in such wise that the sister of the 
 one shall be treated and trusted as the sister of the 
 other, any longer ; but the whole moral ties of affinity 
 shall be dissolved to give supposed colour of re- 
 spectability to the irregular lust of a few. There is 
 a dignified effrontery in demanding this, which takes 
 many as it were by storm, and makes them feel as if
 
 46 Consequences to be apprehended. 
 
 the whole morals of English domestic life should be 
 altered to correspond with the irregularities of a 
 few, who put their own wishes and erroneous notions 
 of expediency instead of the light of Scripture. If, 
 as they suppose, affinity does not survive the dis- 
 solution of the first marriage bond by death, let it be 
 shown on what principle consistently with this it 
 survives the dissolution of it by divorce. Who, say 
 they, will make so good a step-mother as the wife's 
 own sister ? Let them change the point of view to 
 the other side, and the question becomes, Who so 
 good a step-father as the deceased husband's own 
 brother, the very man whom God has expressly for- 
 bidden? The affections of the mother's sister, 
 trusted and permitted in the confidence and holy 
 freedom of a sister, are a protection to the children, 
 and afi*ord a resource and provide an advocate, if 
 they should, after their mother's death, suffer oppres- 
 sion from a jealous step-mother. But that collateral 
 protection by this new expediency is to be taken 
 away, and the aunt is herself to be placed in the 
 position of jealousy, as step-mother. This moral 
 result is finely pointed out by St. Basil : '' Make not, 
 O man, thy young children's aunt into their step- 
 mother ; nor arm against them her, who ought to 
 stand to them in affection instead of their mother, 
 with those implacable jealousies." And in order 
 that this may be done in a few cases for the gratifi- 
 cation of an irregular passion, the principle of 
 brotherly and sisterly affection, and confidence 
 between brothers and sisters in law, is to be de- 
 stroyed in all, and a principle of reserve introduced 
 in each case as great as towards one with whom 
 there was no affinity. The children in short, after
 
 Consequences to be apprehended. 47 
 
 tlieir motlier's death, must generally be deprived of 
 tHe kindly influence and protection of tlieir mother's 
 sisters as aunts ^ Nay, will this not necessarily 
 affect the position of the wife's sister even during the 
 wife's lifetime ? Will no principle of danger and of 
 jealousy be introduced when the sister is to be 
 regarded as an eventual aspirant to the husband's 
 conjugal affections, one who may yet put on her 
 dead sister's wedding-dress, and celebrate her mar- 
 riage feast over her grave, and mount the marriage 
 bed which has been cleared of her cold remains ? Is 
 there no revulsion of sisterly feelings and holy affec- 
 tions involved in this ? Hitherto the affections, the 
 associations, and the holy influences of home, have 
 been strong in England. The Lord God of heaven 
 avert from us the time when the opening of new 
 ideas and new channels of desire may break up 
 mutual confidence, awaken mutual jealousies, and 
 render a man's foes those of his own household; or 
 when the interested sorrow which has watched over 
 a sick and expiring sister shall be followed, when 
 the breath is out, by the emotion which throws the 
 arms around the widower's neck ! Far from the 
 
 ' These consequences are stated to have practically followed in 
 Germany. " I have heard Germans lament it very much," says 
 a distinguished divine. " They have told me that all domestic 
 relations are in consequence broken up. Uncles marry their 
 nieces, and brothers-in-law marry their sisters-in-law. The 
 domestic relation being thus contracted, the orphan niece and the 
 deceased wife's sister no longer find a home where so rhany do 
 among us, where the law is against such unions. Such instances 
 abroad will not, if we inquire into their moral effect upon society 
 or religion, commend the like to us. I am told that the state of 
 marriage in Germany is very frightful. I asked a German doctor 
 of philosophy lately as to the state of marriage, and he said, ' It 
 makes a German cover his face with his hands for shame.' "
 
 48.. Consequences to be apprehended. 
 
 variable region of earthly politics, we have access to 
 a Throne more august, a Lavt^giver who changes not 
 with the caprices of human desire, and the principles 
 of whose legislation cannot be made subservient to 
 the agitation of interested men, or to the hirelings of 
 the wealthy and the proud, who with a gratuitous 
 hypocrisy profess themselves to be urging the matter 
 solely with a view to the moral improvement of the 
 poor ^ 
 
 I leave their real motives to their own consciences. 
 But the effect of the change for which they are 
 agitating would be to put the law of England 
 grossly at variance with the moral principles of the 
 revealed Word of God. 
 
 ^ See as to this an admirable speech of Vice-Chancellor Sir W. 
 Page Wood (now Lord Chancellor Hatherley), on February 1, 
 1860, which is published in the form of a tract by the Marriage 
 Law Defence Association, No. 10 of their Series, pp. 16, 17. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 GILBERT AND BIVINGTON, PBINTEES, ST. JOHN S SQUARE, LONDON.
 
 
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