MARRIAGES OF AFFINITY.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTAT0R:1 SIE,—In allowing me to refute Mr. Archer Gurney's " corroboration " of your statement of Scripture, you reiterate the statement itself, without a word of evidence in support, and still keeping back the letter in which I gave you chapter and verse to the contrary. Again, I say, this is not the manner of the Spectator. Will you now admit a single text P "Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, neither shalt thou take her son's daughter, or her daughter's daughter, to uncover her nakedness; [for] they are [her] near kinswomen : it is wickedness." (Lev. xviii,, 17.) The words in brackets are omitted in the Revised Version.
On this verse the "Speaker's Commentary" observes :—" It should be noticed that incest with a daughter is forbidden only in this indirect manner, while the other very near relationships are distinctly mentioned." Is it possible to express more clearly the identity of the consanguinity and affinity in bar of sexual intercourse ?
I challenge you to produce a single text from the Old or New Testament in support of the Atussulman tradition which limits the prohibition to concnbinage and not to marriage. I further challenge the production of a single case in the Bible, after the delivery of the Law, of any Israelite marrying his wife's sister, either in her lifetime, or after her death.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Beeford, ,Tune 2nd. GEORGE TREVOR, D.D.
[We do not understand our correspondent's remarks. His quotation appears to us to have no bearing at all on our statement, which was, that there is nothing in either the passage in the gospel concerning Herod's connection with his brother's wife, or in the letter of St. Paul, to suggest that what they condemned was anything beyond an act of aggravated adultery. Of course, Dr. Trevor may argue, aliunde, that something else was condemned. We only asserted that there was nothing on the face of those passages to show that it was so. Was not the marriage of the brother to a childless brother's wife required by the law P—En. Spectator.]
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