LEVITICAL LAW OF INCEST. 189 pinquity; for it is identically the same in marriage as in fornication. It is not owing to the fact, that there is sexual intercouse between a brother and sister; for that exists in both cases. Neither is it owing to the fact that the intercourse is fornication; for it is as truly and as fully so with a stranger as with a sister. Incestuous fornication in itself, therefore, involves no more turpitude than that between strangers. But it will be said that, although the fornication in the two cases was equally criminal, yet a severer punishment was necessary for that which was incestuous, to prevent the continual occurrence of it in families. tr 66 This account of the subject is wholly inconsistent with the language of the law. The intercourse with a sister, as well as with every other kinswoman, prohibited in the law, is called, a wickedness," an abomination," an abominable custom ;" and is spoken of as one of the crimes for which the land of Canaan vomited out its inhabitants. But this is not said of ordinary fornication. 99 66 In incestuous fornication also, detection was almost of course certain, whereas in incestuous adultery it was exceedingly difficult; yet the punishment of adultery, whether incestuous or ordinary, was equally severe; while that of fornication, if incestuous, was death, and only a fine if it was not incestuous. This immense difference could not have existed, in two cases of equal criminality, where detection trode closely on the heels of transgression. If Fornication The scheme alleged, also, would have been wholly incomplete. The language of the law of incest, thus interpreted, was: You may marry your sister, your daughter, or your mother, as innocently as a stranger. you commit fornication with a stranger, you shall be fined. with your sister, or with those near of kin, is no more criminal than with a stranger; yet there is greater danger that you will commit it. Therefore, if you do, you shall be put to death. No law, speaking such a language, could possibly answer its object. Let the consciences of men be once satisfied that sexual intercourse, as such, with their nearest connections, is no more criminal than with strangers; and incest will become equally common with fornication and adultery. No matter what laws are made, or what punishments threatened; if you remove the consciousness of deep criminality, you also remove, under any government not completely despotic, the possibility, and the dread, of punishment; for it is only the enormous guilt of particular crimes which leaves the human conscience satisfied when exemplary punishment is inflicted. Why is not the crime of incest now prevalent? Why are our houses pure, and our families innocent? It is because the law of God has placed a guard against the human passions, in that strong sense of guilt, in that instinctive horror at the bare thought of sexual intercourse with our near connections, which is impressed on our minds with the force of a second nature. "This restraint breaks down every propensity to incestuous commerce, and stifles those inclinations which nature for wise purposes bas implanted in our breasts, at the approach of the other sex. It holds the mind in chains against the seductions of beauty. It is a moral feeling, in perpetual opposition to human infirmity. It is like an angel from heaven, placed to guard us against propensities that are evil. It is that warning voice, which enables you to embrace your daughter, however lovely, without feeling that she is of a different sex. It is that which enables you, in the same manner, to live familiarly with your nearest female relations, 190 LEVITICAL LAW OF INCEST. without those desires which are natural to man.' "* Remove this sense of guilt, and families are dissolved. Children, instead of finding a perpetual home under the parental roof, would at an early age be banished from its threshold. The sister could not approach her brother without fear of impurity. The father would find a rival in every son; and the mother, in every daughter. 9. If the law of incest did not forbid incestuous marriage, it was useless. The Israelites had two general laws, forbidding fornication and adultery in all cases, as well with strangers as with relations. What necessity, then, was there of particular statutes, forbidding them with relatives. It may be said that the punishment of these offences, when incestuous, is more severe. But this is not true of adultery. When, therefore, it is said, Leviticus xx. 11, "He that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death;"-why add," And the man that lieth with his father's wife, both of them shall surely be put to death," as well as numerous sections of a similar character, if the latter be mere prohibitions of adultery? What would be thought of the wisdom of a legislature, which should enact a similar statute with regard to any other crime; for example, that of horse-stealing: "He who steals the horse of any person, shall be imprisoned three years;-He who steals his father's horse, shall be imprisoned three years; He who steals his brother's horse, shall be imprisoned three years;-He who steals the horse of his father's brother, shall be imprisoned three years; "—and so on through a succession of thirty-three relatives? Is it not, then, equal folly to enact, with regard to adultery:-" He who commits adultery with any woman, shall be put to death:-He who commits adultery with his mother, shall be put to death;-He who commits adultery with his brother's wife, shall be put to death;-He who commits adultery with his father's brother's wife, shall be put to death,”—and so on through an equal succession. 10. If the law of incest did not prohibit incestuous marriages, its only effect was to weaken the force of the general statute respecting adultery. Every thing is lawful which is not prohibited by some law; and every thing is lawful, so far as a given law is concerned, which that law does not prohibit. And the more particular and circumstantial the terms of a penal law are, as the prohibition of the given offence is less general, so the stronger is the implication that the conduct under different circumstances is lawful. A law, forbidding fornication with females under twenty years of age, and assigning their age as the ground of the prohibition, would give rise to a strong implication, that with those who were older it was lawful. The bare recitation of several of the prohibitions in question, altered to adapt them to the scheme which I oppose, will set the subject in a convincing light. None of you shall commit adultery with any that are near of kin to him. Thou shalt not commit adultery with thy mother; for she is thy mother; thou shalt not commit adultery with her. Thou shalt not commit adultery with thine uncle's wife; for she is thine aunt. Thou shalt not commit adultery with thy daughter-in-law; for she is thy son's wife. *Lord Erskine. LEVITICAL LAW OF INCEST. 191 Thou shalt not commit adultery with thy brother's wife; for she is thy brother's wife. Thou shalt not commit adultery with a woman and her sister, during her lifetime. Thou shalt not commit adultery with a woman and her daughter, nor with her granddaughter; for they are her near kinswomen. And if a man commit adultery with a woman and her mother, it is wickedness. Who does not see, from bare inspection, that the limitation of the prohibition to these cases of propinquity, with the regular assignment of the propinquity, in each case, as the reason why the connection is wrong, and why it is prohibited, carries with it to the mind an almost irresistible implication, that where propinquity did not exist, such connection was lawful? Is any one ready to charge such a mode of legislation on God? 11. The law of incest, established in the Koran, furnishes a striking commentary upon the gross licentiousness of the opposite interpretation. Mahomet had the Arabic translation of the Old Testament, and often made use of it in writing the Koran. In the fourth chapter of that work, he says: "Marry not women* whom your fathers have had to wife, for this is uncleanness, and an abomination, and an evil way. Ye are forbidden to marry your mothers, and your daughters, and your sisters, and your aunts, both on the father's and on the mother's side, and your brother's daughters, and your sister's daughters, and your wives' mothers, and your daughtersin-law, and the wives of your sons, and ye are also forbidden to take to wife two sisters."+ This, as far as it extends, is substantially a repetition of the Levitical law of incest, accommodated, however, to a state of polygamy, and is in terms a prohibition of incestuous marriage. It will not be contended that Mahomet was influenced by any violent bigotry against licentiousness. Yet he had too much integrity to foist such an interpretation, as that which I am opposing, on the Old Testament, and too much purity to enact such a law, as that which is here charged on the Lawgiver of Israel. I have been led to discuss this point at greater length than some of my readers may regard as necessary, because the advocates for one of the marriages long considered unlawful, when driven from a few of their first po * As Mahomet was legislating for polygamists, he mentions each female relative in the plural. + It might be well for the legislature of New York to compare this law of Mahomet with their own law of incest of January 1, 1830. The law of Mahomet forbids a man to marry not only his lineal female relatives, both ascending and descending, but his sister, his aunt, and his niece-relations by consanguinity-and his father's wife, his wife's mother, his wife's sister, his wife's daughter, and his son's wife-relations by affinity; whereas the law of New York forbids him to marry none but his lineal female relatives and his sister. It is worthy of observation, also, that Cicero (Orat. pro Clucntio), speaking of the mother of Cluentius, thus characterises her marriage with her son-in-law: O mulieris scelus incredibile, et præter hanc unam in omni vita inauditum !" Is it not passing strange that a Christian legislature, in its marriage laws, should have exhibited a degree of licentiousness, of which the licentious prophet of Arabia would have been ashamed; and should have sanctioned numerous marriages, one of which,-that with a wife's mother, the Roman orator, himself a heathen, pronounces "an incredible wickedness, until then unknown?" Are the good people of the State of New York generally aware that, in their State, it is lawful for a man to marry his aunt and his niece, by blood; as well as his father's wife, his son's wife, his wife's mother, his wife's daughter, and his wife's sister: all forbidden even by Mahomet, and several of them by the laws of heathen Rome? Has the possession of the Bible carried us downward, on the scale of moral elevation, far below the footing of Mahomet and his followers, and even below that occupied by the more decent heathens, and left us almost on the level of the ancient Canaanites? sitions, resort usually to this-that no marriage is incestuous;-and the most discerning of their number take this position in the outset. The evidence actually exhibited will, I flatter myself, satisfy every reader, that the law of incest as certainly forbade marriage, between the various correlatives whom it mentions, as every other species of sexual intercourse. Pp. 45-57. C. DEGREES PROHIBITED.-P. 79. For the reason assigned in the remarks introducing the preceding extract, the following statement and tables of prohibited degrees is extracted from the same valuable work,-viz., Dwight's "Hebrew Wife." Mr Dwight says: Having thus recited the sections of the Levitical law of incest, and ascertained the principles on which it is to be interpreted, we are led, in answering the question, "What was that law?" to consider, (III.) The marriages which the law of incest actually prohibited. In doing this we shall commence with lineals, and close with collaterals. 1. Lineals of the first degree by consanguinity. Lev. xviii. 7, "The nakedness of thy father or the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou not uncover; she is thy mother; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness." Lev. xx. 11, "And the man that lieth with his father's wife, hath unovered his father's nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death : their blood shall be upon them.” Deut. xxii. 30, "A man shall not take his father's wife, nor uncover his father's skirt." Deut. xxvii. 20, "Cursed be he that lieth with his father's wife; because he uncovereth his father's skirt." In these passages marriage is expressly forbidden between a son and a mother; but the propinquity is the same between a father and a daughter. They therefore may not intermarry. Hence, A woman may not marry her Son, 2. Lineals of the first degree by affinity. A man may not marry his Mother, Lev. xviii. 8, "The nakedness of thy father's wife shalt thou not uncover; it is thy father's nakedness.” † : Lev. xviii. 15, "Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy daughter-in-law she is thy son's wife; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness." Lev. xviii. 17, "Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter it is wickedness." Lev. xx. 12," And if a man lie with his daughter-in-law; both of them shall surely be put to death." *The implied cases are italicised. This passage certainly forbids marriage with a stepmother, because the preceding verse forbids it with an own mother. Several of the passages recited under the last head also forbid marriage with a stepmother. Lev. xx. 14, "And if a man take a wife and her mother; they shall be burnt with fire." Deut. xxvii. 20, "Cursed be he that lieth with his mother-in-law." Marriage is here expressly forbidden with a stepmother (Lev. xviii. 8), with a stepdaughter (Lev. xviii. 17, and xx. 14), with a mother-in-law (Lev. xviii. 17, and xx. 14, and Deut. xxvii. 20), and with a daughter-inlaw (Lev. xviii. 15, and xx. 12). Hence, A woman may not marry her Step-son, Step-father, Father-in-law, Son-in-law. A man may not marry his Step-mother, 3. Lineals of the second degree by consanguinity. Lev. xviii. 10, "The nakedness of thy son's daughter, or of thy daughter's daughter, thou shalt not uncover; for theirs is thine own nakedness." As a woman is just as near to her son's son, and her daughter's son, as a man to his son's daughter and his daughter's daughter, the prohibition of the two latter implies that of the two former. Hence, A woman may not marry her Father's father, A man may not marry his Son's daughter, Daughter's daughter, Mother's mother. Or more concisely, and in more customary language, Grandson. 4. Lineals of the second degree by affinity. Granddaughter, Lev. xviii. 17, "Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman, and her son's daughter, or her daughter's daughter: it is wickedness." This passage pronounces the propinquity between a grandmother and her granddaughter (whether her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter) to be so great, that it is not lawful for a man, who is the husband of either, to marry the other. This clause, therefore, in express terms, forbids marriage between a man and his wife's granddaughter, whether her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter, and between a man and his wife's grandmother, whether her father's mother or her mother's mother. But a woman has identically the same propinquity to her husband's grandson on the one hand, whether his son's son or his daughter's son, and to her husband's grandfather on the other, whether his father's father or his mother's father. Hence, A woman may not marry her Daughter's daughter's husband, Husband's daughter's son, A man may not marry his Or more concisely, and in more customary language, Husband's father's father, Husband's mother's father. Grandmother's husband, Wife's granddaughter, N |