Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 6.djvu/201

Ⅳ, 23-28. hinder them, that ye may go off with part of what ye brought them, unless they commit fornication manifestly; but associate with them in reason, for if ye are averse from them, it may be that ye are averse from something wherein God has put much good for you.

But if ye wish to exchange one wife for another, and have given one of them a talent, then take not from it anything. What! would you take it for a calumny and a manifest crime ?

How can ye take it when one of you has gone in unto the other, and they have taken from you a rigid compact ?

And do not marry women your fathers married, — except bygones, — for it is abominable and hateful, and an evil way; unlawful for you are your mothers, and your daughters, and your sisters, and your paternal aunts and maternal aunts, and your brother's daughters, and your sisters daughters, and your foster mothers, and your foster sisters, and your wives' mothers, and your step daughters who are your wards, born of your wives to whom ye have gone in ; but if ye have not gone in unto them, then it is no crime in you ; and the lawful spouses of your sons from your own loins, and that ye form a connexion between two sisters, — except bygones, — verily, God is forgiving, merciful ; and married women, save such as your right hands possess, — God's Book against you! — but lawful for you is