SOG-UK-L Archives

Archiver > SOG-UK > 1999-04 > 0923470517


From: Hector Davie <>
Subject: Re: [SOG-UK-L] Prohibited Marriages
Date: Wed, 07 Apr 1999 09:35:17 +0200


> Until early this century, it was forbidden to marry a deceased spouses's
> sibling.
>
> Does anyone on the list know why?

Marrying a deceased brother's wife (and hence a deceased husband's
brother) was generally regarded as undesirable in the Old Testament:

Leviticus 20:21:
And if a man shall take his brother's wife, it [is] an
unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother's nakedness; they
shall be childless.

except when the brother died childless:
Deuteronomy 25:5
If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have
no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a
stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take
her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's
brother unto her.

Canon Law gradually codified this, and, basing itself on "the twain
shall become one flesh", reckoned that a man's wife's sister was
essentially his own sister (as she was, "in law") - and hence
marrying her constituted incest.

Genetically, the prohibition makes no sense. Presumably there were
social consequences (inheritance of property, etc) which reinforced
the ban. One wonders about the debates in parliament during the
late 19th century when the prohibition was (with difficulty)
repealed ("...that annual blister: Marriage with deceased wife's
sister," to quote W S Gilbert).

Hector Davie

This thread: