be, or be made lawful, or is at any hand to be endured: for the marriage of brother and sister is against a secondary law of nature; that is, it stands next to the natural prohibition, and is against a natural reason, though not against a prime natural law." 3. Between a man and his father's wife. He regards it as unnatural. 4. Between uncles and nieces. Unlawful by positive precept. 5. He contends that the marriage of cousin-germans is lawful.
We could not find the place in which he pleads in favor of the marriage of a man with his deceased wife's sister.
"Affinity," he says, "makes conjunctions equal to these of consanguinity; and, therefore, thou must not uncover the nakedness which is thine in another person of blood or affinity, or else is thy father's or mother's, thy brother's or thy sister's, thy son's or thy daughter's nakedness. This is all that can be pretended to be forbidden by virtue of these words, near of kin or the nearness of thy flesh."[1]
Hooker and Doddridge are set down as plead-
- ↑ Ductor Dubitantium, pp. 225–231.
