declared by Christ himself to be the nature of marriage, but it is the doctrine which underlies the whole Levitical law on this sub- ject. Nearness of kin is expressed constantly by saying that one is " flesh of the flesh " of the other, inttn "iSttJ, "iDarnem carnis suae s. corporis sui esse cognatam propinquam, quae est ut caro ejusdem corporis." * According to the Scriptures, therefore, hus- band and wife are the nearest of all relations to each other. Ac- cording to the spirit, and most of the legislation of the present age, they are no relations at all. They are simply partners. If one member of a business firm die, his property does not go to his partner, but to his own family ; so if a wife die, without chil- dren, her property does not go to her husband, but to her third or fourth cousins. They, in the eye of the law, are more nearly related to her than her husband. This is not the light in which God looks upon marriage.
2. The second principle which underlies these marriage-laws is, that affinity is as real a bond of relationship as consanguinity. Fully one half of the marriages specified in Leviticus are pro- hibited on the ground of affinity. The same form of expression is used to designate both kinds of relationship. Those related to each other by affinity are said to be " flesh of the flesh," one of the other, just as blood relations ; because all the specifications contained in the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus are included un- der the general prohibition contained in the sixth verse, " None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him ; " un- der this head are included step-mothers ; mothers-in-law ; step- daughters ; sisters-in-law (as when a man is forbidden to marry the widow of his brother) ; uncle's wife, etc. These relation- ships are traced out in the line of affinity, just as far as they are in that of consanguinity. The declaration, therefore, contained in the Westminster Confession,1 " The man may not marry any of his wife's kindred nearer in blood than he may of his own, nor the woman of her husband's kindred nearer in blood than of her own," is a simple and comprehensive statement of the law as laid down in Leviticus. In saying that affinity is as real a bond of relationship as consanguinity, it is not meant that it is as strong. A daughter is a nearer relation than a step-daughter, or daugh- ter-in-law ; a mother than a step-mother ; a sister than a sister- in-law. This, as we have seen, is recognized in the law itself.
i Rosenmiiller, Scholia in Vetus Testamentum in Compendium redacta, Leipzig, 1836, vol. i. pp. 536, 537. * Chap. xxiv. 4.
420 PART m. Ch. XIX.— THE LAW.
The Bible asserts nothing inconsistent with fact or nature. In making affinity a real bond of kindred, it is meant that it is not merely nominal, or conventional, or arbitrary. It has its founda- tion in natur^and fact.
Mr. Bishop, in his elaborate work on " Marriage and Divorce," says, " A truly enlightened view will doubtless discard altogether affinity as an impediment, while it will extend somewhat the degrees of consanguinity within which marriages will be forbid- den." * He also teaches 2 that " the relationship by affinity " ceases " with the dissolution which death brings to the marriage. .... If, when a man's wife dies, she is still his wife, then, of
course, her sister is still his sister If , on the other hand,
the wife is no more the wife after her death, then is her sister no more the sister of the husband. And though men who have no other idea of religion than to regarddt as a bundle of absurd and loathed forms, may not be able to see how the termination of the relationship by the death of the wife is of any consequence in the case, yet men who discern differently and more wisely, will dis- cover nothing unseemly in practically acting upon a fact which everybody knows to exist."
It is very evident that Mr. Bishop never asked himself what, in the present connection, the word " relationship " means. Had he had any clear idea of the meaning of the word, he never could have written the above sentences. By relationship is here meant the relation in which parties stand to each other ; and that, in the case supposed, is a matter of feeling, affection, and intimacy. This relationship is not dissolved by the death of the person through whom it arose. A wife's sister continues to cherish to her widowed brother-in-law the same sisterly affection after, as be- fore her sister's death. She can live with him, guide his house, and take charge of his children, without the slightest violation of her self-respect, and without fear of incurring the disrespect of others.
Besides, if relationship by affinity is dissolved by death, then a son may, on the death of his father, marry his step-mother, which Paul says (1 Cor. v. 1) was not tolerated among the heathen. We have not come to that yet. On the principle of Mr. Bishop, a man may marry his mother-in-law, his daughter-in-law, and, on the death of the mother, his step-daughter. All this the Bible forbids ; and whatever religion in some of its manifestations may
1 Commentaries on the Law of Marriage and Divorce, by Joel Prentiss Bishop, Boston, 1864, vol. i. § 320.
2 Ibid. § 314. note 2.