By these rules of interpretation, the marriage of a man with his deceased wife's sister can be proved to be unlawful.
1. The fifth rule shows that the near relation which a man sustains to his wife's sister, is not destroyed by her death; and, by the second rule, she is brought within the interdicted degrees: for she sustains to her sister's husband precisely the same relation he sustains to his brother's wife, whom he is expressly forbidden to marry.
2. Such a marriage is unlawful by the third rule; for it teaches us that the law addresses women as well as men. When, therefore, it prohibits a man to marry his brother's wife, it virtually prohibits a woman to marry her sister's husband.
3. This marriage is prohibited by the general rule laid down in the sixth verse of the chapter; for the husband is "near of kin" to the sister of his deceased wife, according to the true meaning of the phrase, as explained by the subsequent prohibitions, which prove that it refers to relations by affinity as well as by consanguinity.
Basil, surnamed the Great, who flourished in the fourth century, denominates this mar-
