Page:Marriagewithade00forbgoog.djvu/13

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

9

brother's wife; "this of the wife's sister which is not named, being directly the same degree of propinquity, that the brother's wife, which is named and prohibited". And he goes on to say, "And accordingly the Scripturarian Jews, as well as the rest, do here resolve that a man is forbidden to marry two which are akin to one another, and specify in a woman and her sister". (Eccles., Vol. VII., p. 185). The work of Dr. Hammond's here referred to (p. 12) is entitled "A Resolution to the proposed Quœre of Marrying the Wife's Sister," by the learned and pious Henry Hammond, D.D., being a reprint from Vol. I. of his works, by a member of the University (Mr. Foulkes of Jesus Coll.) (Parker, Oxford, 1849). Bishop Wordsworth says: "One thing is clear, that no inference can be derived from this verse, taken by itself, as to the lawfulness of marrying a deceased wife's sister. And when we come to examine the code, taken as a whole, it is no less clear, by logical and necessary inference from the code so taken, that such marriages are unlawful". On this verse 18, which we have been considering, Dr. Pusey says )I., p. 33): "It has the character of a very emphatic prohibition. It is divided, alike by the structure of the words and by the Hebrew colon (so to call it), into two halves. 'A wife to her sister thou shalt not take: to vex, ad retegendam nuditatem jeus; beside her; so long as she liveth'. The first half is the absolute prohibition: the second consists of supplementary clauses. Certainly, so absolute and peremptory a prohibition of this special sort of polygamy, a polygamy which might come recommended to the Jews as having been used by their father Jacob, is an oddly chosen text on which to build the presumption to marry the second sister at all. The order of the words seems purposely inverted for emphasis: but that inversion makes the first clause the more complete in itself, 'A wife to her sister thou shalt not take'. But further, the person spoken of in the last clause, 'so long as she liveth,' may be either sister. The sister who is the object of the prohibition is the second sister; she also is the sister spoken of in the clause to 'uncover her nakedness': in the next clause only does the 'her refer to the first sister. In the last clause, then, it is just as natural to take the words 'so long as she liveth' of the first