# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1878_S38
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 38 —

the brother is also forbidden to the sister. For the sister is just as near as the brother. Thus, as the father's sister is forbidden, so evidently the father's brother is forbidden also. — By way of a reversal on the basis of a reciprocal relationship (per inversionem ex reciproco) between spouses, the woman whom I cannot marry also cannot enter marriage with me. Just so, if the brother may not marry the sister, then also the sister may not marry the brother. Likewise, because the stepmother is forbidden to the stepson, so also the stepmother may not marry the stepson." (Loci theologici, Part III, fol. 207.)

Brochmand: "Is it permitted to marry one's deceased wife's sister? On this question there has been dispute on both sides. Not a few among the rabbis, and the papists who follow them, Bellarmine, Cornelius a Lapide, Fagius, press vigorously that nothing stands in the way of marrying one's deceased wife's sister. This opinion Daniel Hofmann has also defended in a separate writing. But our theologians hold strictly to the opposite opinion, maintaining that it is not permitted to marry a deceased wife's sister. The grounds for this assertion are three. First, we appeal to the general rule: 'None of you shall approach to the nearest of his flesh.' Now husband and wife are one flesh, Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:5. Therefore the wife's sister becomes the nearest of the flesh, and, what follows from this of necessity, one should therefore abstain from a marriage with her. Second, God expressly forbids the union with the wife's sister, Leviticus 18:18: 'You shall not take your wife's sister.' The defenders of the opposite opinion do object that it is only forbidden to take the wife's sister 'to be a rival to her while she is yet alive'; therefore, when the ground of the prohibition ceases, the prohibition itself ceases. To this, however, the definite answer is: that it is indeed absolutely forbidden to take the wife's sister, but above all when she is still alive. That the marriage with the wife's sister is forbidden absolutely, however, is evident already from the fact that this is a specific example of the general rule about avoiding marriage with the nearest of one's flesh. But it is expressly added that this should not be done while she lives, for the sake of the example of the patriarch Jacob, who married two sisters at the same time, so that no one should cite this deed for himself. Third: it is not permitted to marry a deceased brother's wife. For the words of the Holy Spirit are clear, Leviticus 18:16. With what semblance of truth, then, may one say that it is permitted to marry a deceased wife's sister? For the relationship is an equal one; both, namely, are in the same first degree of the same line." (System. univers. th. Art. 42, c. 4, q. 41, Vol. II, fol. 577.)