PROHIBITION OF INCEST THE SUBJECT OF LEV. XVIII. 6–17. 69

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.

"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 grand-daughter; 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?”

It may be laid down as a position which none will deny, but those who have the Turkish notions of the inferiority and subserviency of the woman to the man, as a mere instrument of convenience and sensual gratification, or who, to gain their ends in this question, seem to overleap all barriers, however sacred, that in a moral point of view a man and woman are the same, and that what is morally forbidden to a man, is morally forbidden to a woman; that, in the present case, so far as the moral obligation on each is concerned, the sexes are what has been called convertible. But, morally certain as this principle is, the adversary debates it, because he knows that if it is not admitted his cause is lost.

We have already stated that the ground of the Levitical prohibitions is as truly affinity as consanguinity. "To those who have read that law," says Mr Dwight, "an apology seems due for attempting to prove so plain a point. Yet, in most discussions of this subject, it is denied. If, then, the reader will turn back" (he had previously given it) "to the law itself, he will see that the marriages prohibited in Lev. xviii. 8, 14, 15, 16, and 17; Lev. xx. 11, 12, 14, 20, and 21; Deut. xxii. 30; and Deut. xxvii. 20, 23, are every one of them cases of affinity. Under a subsequent head I have examined at length what marriages are forbidden by the law of incest. It will there be found, that of the marriages expressly forbidden, six are cases of consanguinity, and eleven of affinity." (Hebrew Wife, p. 57.)

Keeping these principles and facts in view, then, we have the prohibition of Leviticus xviii. 16, "Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother's wife; it is thy brother's nakedness;" also Lev. xx, 21, "And if a man shall take his brother's wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath un

70

MARRIAGE WITH THE SISTER OF A WIFE PROHIBITED.

covered his brother's nakedness: they shall be childless." "Taking" the wife and "uncovering her nakedness" are the same thing; and thus no doubt is left as to the meaning.

There can be no question that those passages expressly forbid marriage between a husband's brother and a brother's wife or widow. If it were

not the widow, it is forbidden in the case of every other man, as well as of a brother, and this prohibition were unnecessary, absurd, and even mischievous. It would have been enough to say, thou shalt not take another man's wife. But the guilt in this case lies in the "nearness of kin "-in its being the "brother's nakedness," he and his wife being one flesh. And as the simple crime of adultery was forbidden in the seventh commandment, and could be committed by one of the parties in relation to one another only during the life-time of both, the sin here spoken of relates to a different crime, and is forbidden when one of them is dead. But the relationship between a wife's sister and a sister's husband is one and the same, and, therefore, the woman may not marry the husband of her deceased sister, nor the husband marry her. By the prohibition in question, a man may not marry his brother's wife; it follows, then, by unavoidable consequence, that a woman may not marry her husband's brother. If the man may not marry the widow, the woman may not marry the widower. Now, by this law, a woman cannot marry her husband's brother. But a husband's brother and a wife's sister are the very same in the degree of relationship; in other words, are morally bound by the same law. The law, therefore, which forbids a woman marrying her husband's brother, equally forbids a man marrying his wife's sister. There is no avoiding this conclusion, but by denying the most ordinary principles of morals, as applicable alike both to man and to woman. One would think that nothing can be clearer than this, that a law which prohibits a man, any man, married or unmarried, to marry his brother's wife or widow, must prohibit a woman, any woman, whether she have ever been married or not, from marrying her sister's husband or widower; and so of course the husband of a deceased wife cannot marry her sister. But those who think thus, are very much mistaken if they imagine that this makes any difficulty with writers on the other side. Mr Binney of London, at once, and in very summary terms, says, “DENIED. Men and

6

women are not to be regarded as placed on the same footing' by Moses, in respect to the law of marriage.' It may be all very true that 'men and women, as equally moral beings, as alike possessed of immortal souls, and responsible to God,' should be regarded as equals. But it does not follow from this, that in the time of Moses the sexes were convertible,' and placed on the same footing in regard to the law of marriage,' nor that they are so yet, nor that they ought to be. Whatever may be the sameness of the thing, considered in its moral aspect, and in relation to God and the next world, it does so happen, that in the view of society, and in respect to this world, perfect personal and matrimonial purity is of more importance in a woman than a man.'

The capitals and italics, with the exception of the last clause but one, are Mr Binney's own. We shall leave it to the reader, to the "Men of Glasgow," and especially to "the Women of Scotland," to entertain the appropriate feelings which this passage, and above all, the methods by which its principle is maintained, must excite in every bosom that has any "moral purity." The reader will remark that this writer settles the whole question on the * "Men of Glasgow, and Women of Scotland," pp. 40, 41.

PROHIBITION NOT ONE OF CONSTRUCTION.

71

supposed views of Hebrew society, as if Moses spake by no higher authority than Sultan Mahmoud, and certainly with vastly less power to enforce it. We presume that if Dr Symington, to whom he refers, had not been discussing what GOD commanded by Moses, not what Hebrews did, or Hebrew women were not permitted to do by their Hebrew lords, he would have troubled himself very little about the matter. Mr Binney does not tell whether he believes a man and a woman are on an equal footing in a moral point of view and in the sight of God. He will not be caught by any such admission. "The women of Scotland," and it is to be hoped the women of England too, will henceforth understand what position they are intended by the Libertarians to occupy. Mr Binney proves, however, that barbarism and immorality are nearly allied.

An attempt has been made to get rid of the argument, by asserting that parity of reasoning is not admissible in statute law, or that we cannot hold— for this must be the meaning here-that what is forbidden to a man is by implication forbidden to a woman. An American writer (Rev. Mr Marshall) spends a whole chapter of 34 pages, of a 212 page little book, on this point; but, with more ingenuity than fairness, argues it on the principle of constructive treason, or treason determined, not by statute, but by construction. It is not a question of this nature at all. It is not a question of what is treason; but as to whether that which is treason in a man is treason in a womanas to whether that which was treason in James Duke of Monmouth would have been treason in Ann Duchess of Buccleuch. He introduces, for the sake of effect, the case of a Rev. Thomas Magot, most cruelly treated by Judge Jefferies, who strained the law of treason so as to punish him, by making it an act of treason to have left £600 to Richard Baxter for behoof of sixty ejected Nonconformist ministers, not because they were Nonconformists, but because they were poor. The writer evinces his love of liberty by declaiming in praise of the noble deed of abolishing the crime of constructive treason altogether. His patriotism and his logic would both have some meaning in the present case, if the question by Jefferies had been, if what was treason in the Rev. Thomas Magot was treason in Mrs Thomas Magot, his wife, or Miss Jane Baxter, her sister. The case we have to do with is not one of construction at all, but simply whether what is sin or crime in a man be sin or crime in a woman,— -a point about which the unsophisticated reason or conscience of Christian men will have no great difficulty. Another attempt has been made to get quit of the argument deducible from the prohibition in Lev. xviii. 16, and in Lev. xx. 21, by denying its moral obligation, on the ground of the regulation, Deut. xxv. 5, 6-"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. And it shall be, that the first-born which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel." In so far as the Israelites were concerned, whether this was an express command, or a permissive regulation, it is an exception to the rule, and so confirms the force and certainty of the rule itself. The regulation, by excluding a marriage in such a case with a stranger, shows the express design of it to be peculiar, and that the general law was in all other cases binding. It shows also that a contravention of, or exemption from the general law, could not be made on any authority less than that of the Divine Lawgiver. And further, that unless on other good grounds

72

DEUT. XXV. 5, 6 AN EXCEPTION NOT A GENERAL PERMISSION.

it can be proved that the law of incest in Leviticus xviii. 16, and other analogous places, is repealed, the exception ceases with the peculiarity of the design.

But besides, it may be remarked in passing, that it is a provision which could not take effect in the very case for which the advocates for the lawfulness and expediency of the marriage of a man with the sister of a deceased wife contend that it is most beneficial and necessary, namely, where the husband has left no children. Where there were children in the case, it could not take place, and so could not serve the very sentimental end about which they so benevolently declaim.

But, of course, the argument of opponents is, that if there were any thing in such connections morally wrong, or contrary to the will of God-which morally wrong must mean here, to be of any use in the argument—God would never have either dispensed with his own law, or enjoined its contravention. The fact, however, is certain, that God commanded, as in Lev. xviii. 16, that a man should not marry his brother's wife. And the fact is equally certain, that God appointed the regulation in Deut. xxv. 5, 6. The real question therefore is, whether, if there be no other principles or statute in the Word of God repealing the command in Lev. xviii. 16, not only to Jews but to Gentiles, this regulation in Deut. xxv. 5, 6 is tantamount to a repealing statute for all men? He will be a bold man who will assert that it is, whether he can reconcile or not the two commands with the moral law of God. If he will persist in saying that God could not have prohibited as an immorality in the general, that which he either permitted or enjoined in the special case, this assertion was as applicable to the prohibition in Lev. xviii. 16, to Israelites of old, as it is to Jews or Gentiles now; and the Israelites of old might, on the footing of this exc ption, have despised the prohibition of the Almighty with as much justice as a Jew or a Gentile may do so now. The argument, then, of these parties, derived from Deut. xxv. 5, 6, if good for their purpose at all, is good for a great deal more. It goes to the removal out of the way, both of Jews and Gentiles, ancient and modern, of Lev. xviii. 16 altogether-viz., of the prohibition to marry the brother's wife; and if it be good to that extent, they need not trouble themselves much with the argument from parity of reasoning to the wife's sister. This will do their work far more effectually; but then it makes strange work and havoc of the law of God. It makes the Almighty enact and annul at one and the same moment. That, however, which one would think would stagger at least the men who make any pretensions to Christian morality is, that it goes the length of removing the laws of incest altogether, of denying that it is a crime, and of sanctioning marriage in any possible degree of relationship whatever. On the principle of their argument, that God would neither command nor permit what is morally wrong, as they apply it to this question, the command addressed to our first parents to "be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth," not only would carry them thus far, but is carried thus far by the reckless deniers of God's law and authority altogether. Men who are thus reckless of consequences in following out their opinion of a controverted text, because some one, in the amusement of a little "literary antiquarianism," has said that a text bearing on another subject warrants them to do so, deserve the severest reprobation. Some of the men, who seek importance by the snappish familiarity with which they presume to rebuke men of great learning and name, affect much righteous indignation at the idea of God suspending his

THE LAWGIVER CAN SUSPEND A MORAL POSITIVE LAW.

73

moral. laws. I do not myself like that mode of expressing it. But what is meant by those who use it on this subject is, that God of his own authority, and for great and important reasons, founded, as we see by actual observation of the effects of its violation, in the physical and moral condition of man, for the prevention of human degeneracy and crime, physically and morally, has prohibited certain kinds of intercourse between man and woman, whether married or unmarried, on pain of his righteous indignation. He did, nevertheless, as the Sovereign Ruler of all, in order to fulfil certain designs, make one exception at the creation of man, and another exception to keep the Israelites a separate people, and free from the abominations of the Gentiles, and to fulfil his promise as to the coming of the Holy One. But this he did by the same authority that enacted, and in the exercise of the same wisdom, and by the same constituting power by which he framed the general law and the general constitution; and while the exceptions have accomplished their ends and have ceased, the general law and general constitution by his positive authority remain, and are our standing rule, and are, as his will, of moral obligation to the end of time. It must be so, unless he miraculously interpose a new revelation for the ease and comfort of those who feel the present constitution a heavy blow and great discouragement to their insatiable love of this kind of liberty.

The same reasoning which these men use would sanction murder and robbery too, as in the cases of Samuel putting Agag to death by God's command, Abraham offering up his son Isaac, the Israelites spoiling the Egyptians, and other similar cases to be found in the Bible, where God, as Creator, Ruler, Proprietor of life and property, and Supreme Judge, takes the matter into his own hand. If men must get into the abstract metaphysics and eternal ethics of such a point, and will not be content without abstract eternal ethics, in a matter which, from its very nature, must be of moral positive law and institution, they must carry their abstract ethics to a length to which few men who reverence the Word of God will choose to follow them.* God set aside, or if you will, suspended, the great general law of the doom pronounced on the first sin, "dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return," in the cases of Enoch and Elijah; the great general law of life for life in the cases of Cain and of David, and even in the case of Saul of Tarsus, who was accessory to the murder of Stephen, while yet he did not revoke the general law in any of these cases. Would all this be a reason for declaring that the things they did were lawful, and that they were not held to have deserved the execution of the sentence which God had pronounced as due to the sin and the crime? These exceptions were made by the Lawgiver himself. He doubtless made them in entire harmony with his own moral perfections. And if in these cases, why not in any other where we have his own sanction or permission? It is presumed that it was on some such notion of the abstract metaphysics of ethics that Hume maintained that murder was only the turning aside of the current of a little red fluid, called blood; and adultery no harm, unless it were known.

I have to call special attention to one other point, which must carry the judgment of every one who is not resolved, or at least not previously

* On this, as on every other point of the Scripture argument, I earnestly recommend the admirable reasoning of Dwight. Some of our readers will hardly believe that men professing Christianity do actually, on the kind of reasoning here adverted to, deny that there is any such crime as incest at all.