Page:Marriagewithade00forbgoog.djvu/17

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1 Cor., v. 1. Next, a sister, v. 9. Next, a granddaughter, v. 10. Next, a half-sister, v. 11. Next, an aunt by the father's side, v. 12. Next, an aunt by the mother's side, v. 13. Next, an aunt by marriage with an uncle, v. 14. Next, a son's wife, v. 15. Next, a brother's wife, v. 16. Next, a wife's daughter, mother, or granddaughter, v. 17. Here are thirteen cases in all: six of kindred by blood, and seven of kindred by marriage: and neither by the order in which they follow one another, nor by any difference of expression regarding them, is any hint given that the one sort of profanation is less heinous in God's sight than the other. The world may have come to think there is a difference, because the world will not believe that man and wife are really one flesh. But the written Law of God apparently deals with both alike. The next remark," Keble goes on to say, "I have to make on this, which is God's own table of prohibited marriages, is one which it seems to me no fair mind can deny. Indeed, one is half-ashamed to enounce it, it is so obvious; yet the reasoning on the other side appears to be mainly based on the denial of it. It is simply this: that nearness of kin not being affected by sex, what is forbidden to a man is forbidden to a woman in the same degree of kindred or affinity, though it be not set down in words. For instance, in v. 7, a man is forbidden to marry his mother: then by the same rule, a woman is forbidden to marry her father, though the prohibition is not expressed. Surely it would be fearful paltering with God's law not to accept and obey such a plain rule as this. And it is to be observed, that these canons are all addressed to men only: the woman's duty and the woman's sin are left to be inferred in each case: but what should we think of the woman who should therefore account herself left at liberty, so far as the Levitical Laws are concerned?" What Dr. Pusey says (II., p. 4) regarding some marriages being expressly forbidden and others omitted, may very well apply here: "It would be a very Pharisaic interpretation of Holy Scripture which would so insist upon the letter, as to conceive everything, not in so many words forbidden in the letter, to be permitted, although equivalent to that which is forbidden. It is a sort of interpretation professedly borrowed from the Jews,