Page:Unlawfulmarriage00jane.djvu/202

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
198
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE.

Omicron denies this; and, styling a "Brother's wife affinity through blood," he says, "Parallel, not the wife's sister, as is often assumed, but the wife's brother's wife:" (p. 28:) that is, the relation of a wife's brother's wife, which results from two intervening marriages, is the same as the relation of a brother's wife, which results from a single marriage. A singular parallel! My brother's wife might say, "The relation I sustain to my husband is the nearest of all human relations; we are 'one flesh;' I therefore bear a near relation to his brother." In like manner, I may say, "The relation I sustain to my wife is the nearest of all human relations; we are 'one flesh:' I, therefore, bear a near relation to her sister." Are not these two relations parallel?

Omicron is not correct in saying that marriage with a wife's mother is expressly forbidden in verse 17. That verse does not expressly prohibit such a marriage. Its unlawfulness is determined by inference; and the terrible penalty denounced against it, in chap. 20:14, shows the inference to be correct. See above, chap. vii: p. 124.

Further, let it be observed, that, by one of his