Page:Maymanmarryhisde00mack.djvu/14

 yet so heinous a sin that it was "not so much as named among the Gentiles: "1 Cor. v. 1.

It is incredible that the Church should be left wholly without guidance on such a subject, which she has been, unless the law in Leviticus is a law for all ages.

The Law is clearly stated. All unions are forbidden with those that are near of kin (Lev. xviii. 6), and the degrees subsequently specified seem intended to define what degrees are intended by this expression.

If these rules are binding, the converse of them is true, that is to say they are equally binding upon man and woman. Now the relationship between a man and his wife's sister is exactly the same as that between a woman and her husband's brother. If the prohibition of a man's marriage with his brother's wife does not equally forbid the marriage of a woman with her sister's husband, the two relationships being identical, then a woman may marry her grandson, or her uncle, or her aunt's husband, or her niece's husband, though a man may not marry his granddaughter, his aunt, or his uncle's wife.

Some objections remain to be noticed. Their fewness is of itself a strong argument in favour of the doctrine we maintain.

The verse, "Thou shalt not take a wife to her sister to vex her, beside the other, in her lifetime" (Lev. xxviii. 18.) is said to give a tacit permission to take a wife's sister after the death of the first wife: but it by no means follows that because an act is prohibited at one time it is therefore lawful at another. It is most illogical to say he may not do so during her lifetime therefore he may after her death. If the above is the true rendering of the verse, it would appear to be an allusion to Jacob having married two sisters, which