GOD'S PROHIBITION
OF
THE MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE'S
SISTER.
Writers, for and against the lawfulness of marriage with the deceased wife’s sister, have often rested their case on the texts or text which favoured their belief, without taking much notice of that which seems to be, or is, opposed to it. Those who believe such marriages to be contrary to the Word of God, have insisted on the absoluteness of the solemn command, “None of you shall approach unto the whole flesh of your flesh ad retegendam nuditatem ejus, I am the Lord.” Or they have argued, that, since in any moral law, what God forbids to the one sex, He forbids also, to the other, God does really forbid the marriage with the deceased wife's sister, when He forbids the marriage with the deceased brother's wife. The one relation is near as the other. On the other hand, those who maintain that the marriage with the deceased wife’s sister is not forbidden by God’s law, argue, that the wording of the prohibition of polygamy with two sisters virtually allowed to the Jews the marriage with two sisters, when it did not involve polygamy, and consequently, they infer again, the prohibition of this peculiar polygamy to the Jews is, in fact, a permission to Christians to marry the second, or third, or fourth sister, if so be, when the former sisters are dead. In a word, the one party rest their case on God's
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