Marriage with a Deceased Wife’s Sister.
A LETTER
TO THE RIGHT HON. THE LORD HATHERLEY,
Lord High Chancellor of England,
&c., &c., &c.
My Lord,
The deep interest which for a long period you have taken in preserving intact our Table of Degrees as to prohibited marriages, will, I hope, sufficiently account for my wish to address the following remarks to your Lordship, and your unvarying kindness will no less account for the ready permission which you have given me to do so. I will not take up any time in preface further than just to observe that of course you are not in any way responsible for the views or the argument of the ensuing pages, though I am, I hope, justified in believing that, whatever be their imperfections, the object at which they aim will meet with your sympathy and approval. My earnest and anxious wish is to do what I may, God helping me, to aid in averting what I feel would be a grievous sin if our marriage law were altered in the sense desired by the promoters of the Wife’s Sister’s Marriage Bill. I do not purpose to go over the whole ground which has been so often contested, (to do which would be almost an impertinence in remarks addressed to your Lordship), but rather to confine my observations to the Scriptural argument, or, perhaps I should say, to a portion of the Scriptural argument against the change proposed, viz.—to the due sense and application of the 18th verse of the xviii. chapter of Leviticus.
There is, I suppose, no room for reasonable doubt that the case of the advocates of a change in our law which may sanction the marriage of a man with his deceased wife’s sister, rests mainly, so far as the Scriptural argument is concerned, upon the 18th verse of the xviii. chapter of Leviticus. “Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other, in her life time,” where, the translation being assumed to be correct, the interpretation put upon it is that if such a union is forbidden in the life time of the first wife, there is a tacit sanction of the same after her decease. If it were not for this one verse thus translated and thus interpreted, there would, I think, hardly be a question raised or a doubt felt by one in a thousand that such unions are prohibited, denounced as incestuous, and forbidden under God’s general law, just as we find them set down in Archbishop Parker’s table of prohibited degrees.
The importance, then, of this verse being admitted as to the right understanding of God’s will in this matter, I propose briefly to call attention to some points connected with it which I think have not received the consideration to which they are entitled. My aim will be to show, even conceding the whole demand as to the correctness of the translation found in the Text of our authorized version, and not disputing the inference that there is a certain tacit sanction of such a Union with the second sister after the death of the first, yet that upon a careful consideration, it may most reasonably be maintained that the sanction does not extend to any general permission of the same, but that the enactment or permission is made and given for one special object only, and is limited to one particular condition of things, incident only to the Jewish economy, to meet which it is definitely designed and restricted; that therefore it involves, rightly understood, no contradiction at all to the law laid down generally that none shall approach to any near of kin to him (v. 6), nor to the cases which follow illustrating the meaning of that law (v. 7–17), nor, therefore to the prohibitions generally, nor to that one among them particularly, that a woman shall not marry two brothers—extended by direct analogy to the converse case, that a man shall not marry two sisters; in other words, that though the translation, and the inference to a certain extent, be both conceded, yet there is an ample and true sense for the passage, and full scope for its intention and enactment, without its for a moment clashing with the prohibitions of the general law.
But first I would say a word to clear the position that but for this 18th verse of the xviii. chapter of Leviticus, no one would doubt, as to the prohibition in question.
How does the case stand? The xviii. chapter of Leviticus deals first (as the heading states), with “unlawful marriages.” After declaring emphatically, in the first five verses, the importance of keeping God’s law, and warning the people against falling into the sins of the Egyptians and the Canaanites, the matter itself is opened in the 6th verse—“None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him to uncover their nakedness: I am the Lord.” “This,” as you, my lord, observed at the meeting at Willis’s Rooms, (February 1st, 1860,) “is the key-note to all that follows. The law then shows who are near of kin to us, and proceeds to mention more cases of affinity than of relationship by blood.” [5] I am aware that it has been contended on philological grounds that the terms “near of kin” are necessarily confined in their sense to kindred by blood relationship, and cannot embrace relationship by marriage; but I do not feel that there is any material weight in the critical examination of such a passage, as to the general use of a phrase or word, because it seems to me we have here the comment of the Holy Ghost Himself in what follows as to the sense in which the words “near of kin” are, in the connection in which they there stand, to be understood; that is to say, that which follows gives, by the details of the enactments ensuing, God’s own comment as to what is intended by “near of kin,” and if these details be found to embrace affinity as well as, and as much as, blood relationship, it appears to me that the consideration of what in other cases is the usage of the term, must be beside the question we have before us. Nay, is it not, indeed, very probable that terms, which in their ordinary usage would refer simply to blood relationship, are here chosen by Divine inspiration to include also relationship by affinity, for the very purpose of showing that a man and his wife being one flesh, the nearness of kin here contemplated, and illustrated by the instances which follow, was to embrace both relationships alike? I do not know how better to shew that, in the whole connection of this passage, the enactment is of the kind which I have mentioned, than by a quotation from the pamphlet of Mr. Keble, published in 1849. Though, my lord, you and others have said the same things, you will, I am sure, bear with me whilst I recall the passage as it stands in the words of that revered writer. After shewing the scope of the law to extend not merely to the Jews by the curse which it entails having been brought upon the very heathen who gave way to such iniquities, he says:—
“Now, what are the customs which were so abominable in the old inhabitants of God’s Holy Land, and caused the land itself to vomit them out? (the customs, I mean, in respect of marriage: for of the other horrors mentioned in this chapter we are not now compelled to speak.) They are all forbidden in one general principle: ‘None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the Lord.’ This being laid down in the 6th verse, the following verses allege so many instances, whereby God’s people might understand what ‘near of kin’ means. And it is remarkable, that in this enunciation the law makes no distinction between those who are akin by marriage and those who are akin by blood, but mentions them indiscriminately, as if the one sort were precluded from marrying under the same penalties as the other.
“For these are the degrees expressly forbidden, in their order. First, a natural mother, in v. 7. Next, a father’s wife, or step-mother, in v. 8: which is the case mentioned in 1 Cor. v. 1. Next, a sister, v. 9. Next, a grand-daughter, v. 10. Next, a half-sister, v. 11. Next, an aunt by the father’s side, v. 12. Next, an aunt by the mother’s side, v. 13. Next, an aunt by marriage with an uncle, v. 14. Next, a son’s wife, v. 15. Next, a brother’s wife, v. 16. Next, a wife’s daughter, mother, or grand-daughter, v. 17.
“Here are thirteen cases in all: six of kindred by blood, and seven of kindred by marriage: and neither by the order in which they follow one another, nor by any difference of expression regarding them, is any hint given, that the one sort of profanation is less heinous in God’s sight than the other. The world may have come to think there is a difference, because the world will not believe that man and wife are really one flesh. But the written law of God apparently deals with both alike.” [7]