Page:Against profane dealing with holy matrimony.djvu/23

 of such marriages, as others are supposed to have pleaded the command given to Abraham for their cruel sacrifices of their own children to their gods. The enactment, so understood, would seem to be more completely accounted for, than by those who maintain the opposite construction. For the only reason which they suppose to be assigned, why a man may not be the husband of two sisters at the same time, is the danger of vexation from jealousy. But supposing the thing otherwise allowable, why should two sisters under such circumstances be more jealous of each other than two other women? One would think the same natural kindness, which is alleged as rendering the sister fittest to be the stepmother of her sister's children, would equally tend towards making the two, peaceful inmates of the harem together. But if the second marriage be altogether odious and profane, then indeed it is a very shocking additional circumstance for one to venture on it in the first wife's lifetime, and we may well conceive it stigmatized as it is, by special mention on closing the list of those unions, which God Almighty calls abomination and confusion.

If this interpretation have the least shadow