Now, as it is clearly forbidden for a man to marry the widow of his brother, why then should a woman be permitted to marry the widower of a deceased sister? The degree of relationship in both cases are precisely the same. It is true, that, according to Deut. XXV. 5-10, the marriage with a brother's widow is under certain circumstances not only clearly and emphatically commanded, but the refusal to obey this injunction was even to be visited with a lasting disgrace.[1] And there have not been wanting writers who have charged the Hebrew lawgiver with inconsistency in solemnly enjoining here what he elsewhere has strictly forbidden. But these writers have evidently overlooked two important points, namely, in the first place, that these are Divine laws, and that Moses was only the mouthpiece; and secondly, the necessity that may have existed of guarding against evils, the pernicious results of which we are perhaps at this distance of time unable to fathom. The granting of an exception in a special case does by no means imply inconsistency, but rather presupposes the existence of circumstances which render a deviation from a general law imperative. Kalisch need not, therefore, have come to the rash conclusion that "the prohibition and the custom cannot have existed simultaneously, they must belong to different periods," and that the levitical author must have lived in the post-Babylonian period.[2]
- ↑ The custom of marrying the brother's childless widow has been adopted from the Mosaic law by other Eastern nations, who still practise it. Olearius, speaking of the Circassians, says, "When a man dies without issue, his brother is obliged to marry the widow." (Ambassador's Travels in Persia, p. 417.) Volney also remarks, that the Druses retain to a certain degree, the custom of the Hebrews which directed a man to marry his brother's widow (Voyage en Syrie, Tom ii. p. 74).
- ↑ Commentary on Leviticus, p. 362.
