Page:The ancient interpretation of Leviticus XVIII. 18 - Marriage with a deceased wife's sister is lawful.djvu/46

 the inference from verse 16 unlimited, it would be necessary to prove, by legitimate and independent interpretation, that verse 18 does not refer to a wife's sister, or that the words "in her lifetime" are not a limitation.

In what has been just said, the legitimacy of the inference from brother's wife to wife's sister has been conceded for the sake of argument, but, according to the principles of the Mosaic law, and of the New Testament also, this inference is invalid. The ground of the inference is supposed to be the union of man and wife into one flesh, whence it is argued that the relations of the one become the relations of the other, and in the same degree. The fallacy of this argument has already been pointed out by others, by showing how many marriages now allowed by the Church and civil law of England would thus become incestuous and unlawful. I, therefore, confine myself to Scripture, and observe that, according to the Mosaic law, the wife becomes incorporated into the family, mishpachah, of the husband as long as the husband lives, and after his death, so long as she remains a widow ; but the husband is not incorporated into the family, mishpachah, of the wife. His relations become her relations, but her relations do not become his relations.

In the first place the wife loses her family name, and obtains of right that of her husband. In the next, she is so entirely reckoned as part of her husband's family, that she is entitled to all the privileges to which birth in that family would have entitled her. Thus Ruth, the Moabitess, became by her marriage a member of the tribe of Judah, and, when a widow, entitled to all the privileges of the law of the Levirate, just as much as if she had been descended from Judah himself, but her husband did not become a Moabite. The daughters of Zelophehad, or any other heiresses, had they married out of their own tribe and family, would have been