Page:Is Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Lawful?.djvu/19

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Deceased Wife's Sister Lawful?
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which would begin something like this, "if" or "but if." But it begins' as a continuation of God's law—the law of Nature—"neither." That law is that a man shall have only one wife at a time (N.B. the case of Job, who is witness to God's law given from the beginning), and this verse forbids directly polygamy.

God lays down, first of all, kinds of forbidden marriages, and then He forbids polygamy. This would be considered right by all, I trust, in England.

But the verse says, "a man may not take a wife to her sister during his wife's life time." Then, may he afterwards? Certainly not, if she be his wife's own sister. Why? For several reasons.

When a special cause is removed, viz. his wife's being alive, then the law of God is in force as to marriage, the choice of a wife being restricted according to the code which God gave above.

The words "a wife to her sister," according to the marginal rendering, mean "one wife to another." But perhaps this may be objected to as a mere supposition. But what do we know of Hebrew expressions?

"A woman to her sister" means "a woman to a woman," as "a man to his brother" means "a man to a man." It occurs in Scripture——this style of expression, I mean—about thirty times,