132. Avoid ye likewise the malodorous pools in the courtyards of Persian homes [#106]
Most houses in Persia used to have a pool in their courtyard which served as a reservoir for water used for cleaning, washing and other domestic purposes. Since the water in the pool was stagnant and was not usually changed for weeks at a time, it tended to develop a very unpleasant odour.
133. It is forbidden you to wed your fathers’ wives. [#107]
Marriage with one’s stepmother is here explicitly prohibited. This prohibition also applies to marrying one’s stepfather. Where Bahá’u’lláh has expressed a law between a man and a woman it applies mutatis mutandis as between a woman and a man unless the context should make this impossible.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi confirmed that, while stepmothers are the only category of relatives mentioned in the text, this does not mean that all other unions within a family are permissible. Bahá’u’lláh states that it devolves upon the House of Justice to legislate "concerning the legitimacy or otherwise of marrying one’s relatives" (Q and A 50). ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has written that the more distant the blood-relationship between the couple the better, since such marriages provide the basis for the physical well-being of humanity and are conducive to fellowship among mankind.
134. the subject of boys [#107]
The word translated here as "boys" has, in this context, in the Arabic original, the implication of paederasty. Shoghi Effendi has interpreted this reference as a prohibition on all homosexual relations.
The Bahá’í teachings on sexual morality centre on marriage and the family as the bedrock of the whole structure of human society and are designed to protect and strengthen that divine institution. Bahá’í law thus restricts permissible sexual intercourse to that between a man and the woman to whom he is married.