that such marriage is not to be found in the index expurgatorius, the list containing those which are forbidden as incestuous ; and that there is a strongly corroborative argument for them from analogy, grounded on the provision made in the Mosaic writings for the marriage, on a certain contingency, of a brother with a deceased brother's wife.
It is contended, then, that an indisputable sanction has been given, by implication, to marriage with sisters in succession, and that this sanction can be found in a certain place in the Holy Scriptures. The place referred to is that where are the words, " Thou shalt not take a wife to her sister ... in her lifetime." Whether we shall eventually find ourselves in agreement with the contention or not, for the present we have to adopt the argument, and to set it fairly forth. Thus then it is. Here is mention made — express mention — of a wife and her sister, who are not by the same man to be had in marriage contemporaneously, but in succession only, the one after the decease of the other. Upon search in this chapter of the Levitical statute-book, we ascertain that the term sister is used elsewhere throughout it in the specific sense, denoting consanguinity through birth from the same parents, or at the least from the same father or the same mother, and not in a wider or generic signification. It is, therefore, incumbent upon us to interpret it here in the like sense, no reason being shown to the contrary. But if we are to understand the term wife's sister in this place in the ordinaiy, and in its contextual, meaning, the argument may be considered as foreclosed, and the point in question to
