# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1856_S269
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Whether Someone May Marry the Sister of His Deceased Wife? 269

take thy wife's sister." What is to be made of the addition, "so long as she liveth," will be shown afterward. In that whole chapter there is no permission contained, but pure prohibitions only, to which belongs also this, that one may not marry the sister of one's wife;

2. from the position laid down, that, according to Lev. 18, by reason of the generality of the prohibition in v. 6, the equality of the relationship, the absurdity that would follow from the contrary, and the authority of the ancients, who declare themselves for our opinion, not only the persons expressly named, but also the corresponding degrees are forbidden. Now it is not permitted to marry the wife of one's deceased brother, Lev. 18:16; therefore also not the sister of one's deceased wife, since they stand in the same degree, namely in the direct line of relationship by marriage.

It is objected that here the relationship is unequal. a) The wife is not permitted to marry two brothers in succession, on account of the mingling of related seed in one and the same subject and thus on account of incest; but the husband is permitted to take two sisters in succession, since in different persons the seed is not mingled. — Answer. The prohibition of degrees does not depend on the mingling of seed, otherwise one could marry mother and daughter in succession, which is expressly forbidden, but on the close kinship of the flesh, which is exactly the same in the case of the brother's wife and the wife's sister. If, then, it is not free to the wife to marry the brother of her deceased husband, on account of too close a kinship, so it will likewise not be permitted to the husband to take the sister of his deceased wife, on account of the same closeness of kinship. If someone takes his brother's wife, that is a shameful deed, Lev. 20:21. So too: if a woman takes her sister's husband, that is likewise a shameful deed. —

b) To the prohibition of taking the brother's wife is added a reason drawn from the close kinship of the flesh: "for she is thy brother's nakedness"; but to the prohibition of taking the wife's sister, a reason drawn from the resulting evil: "to vex her." — Answer. The former reason applies also in the latter case, and is therefore not repeated in the prohibition against taking the wife's sister, but another is added, one that applies to marriage with the sister while the wife is still living, which, however, does not exclude or abolish the former; —

3. from the rule that, as blood kinship, so also kinship once contracted by marriage stands fixed and unremoved, and is not abolished or annulled by the death of the person through whom it was contracted, since it belongs to that class of effects which continue even when their causes are gone, like a building, even though its builder has died. As, then, the law forbidding one to take the brother's wife, the