childless, yet both sisters were alive.  Then there comes in the exception: “Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her . . . beside the other in her lifetime” (verse 18); as if it were said, In no case—no, not when the law of the Levirate would otherwise require it—no, not when the saving of a house in Israel from extinction would otherwise demand it—shall a man take his wife’s sister, his own wife, her sister, being yet alive: where, too, we may observe, that the parallelism in the cases of the two brothers and the two sisters is strictly and exactly maintained; for the woman in no case could take a second brother, the other being alive; for her husband, the first brother, must be dead before the law of the Levirate could operate at all; therefore the wife’s sister could not (even when two brothers had married two sisters) take her husband’s brother beside the other in his lifetime, and thus the wife’s sister is exactly equally restrained from taking the sister’s husband, when the circumstances would lead to it by a man taking “a wife to her sister . . . beside the other in her lifetime.”

Thus, too, it is clear that the law of this 18th verse is a law of prohibition, not of relaxation, and therefore naturally and properly comes in its place with the other prohibitions of this 18th chapter of Leviticus.

And I venture to submit, that this is the whole meaning and application of this much controverted verse: viz., that it is not in the nature of a general law at all, but is merely the declaration of an exception to an exception—an exception to preclude two living sisters being simultaneously the wives of one man, even when the law of the Levirate, but for this prohibition, would lead to such result.  I must add, that to me it seems to be a full, natural and sufficient explanation of the passage without any further application at all, that is, without supposing it to have anything to do with the general law, or to be any relaxation of the prohibition of the 16th verse as to the brother’s wife, or the converse case to it, by analogy, as to the wife’s sister.

Possibly the exact bearing of the foregoing argument may be made plainer by a paraphrase of the Scriptural statements, putting them something into the form of statute law, by which means the different provisions of the several passages may be combined and their connection be seen, as various provisions in the clauses or sections of an Act of Parliament are read together.  I dare say I shall expose myself to not unjust criticism for technical blunders, in attempting to adopt Act-of-Parliament phraseology; but I shall be content to bear this, if I may attain my main object, viz., to shew how the different parts of the law combine and should be read in connection with each other, and especially what is the force and due application of what will be, so to speak, the last clause or section in the Act.

Suppose, then, God’s law as to these marriages to stand in the statute-book of a Jewish Parliament, imagining for the moment such to have existed.  Might not the principal enactments stand something in this way?  It will be understood that a permission or tacit sanction of polygamy must be assumed, as part of the common law of the community.  Say, then, that the enactments in question stood thus:—

[None to intermarry with those near of kin.]

§ 1.  Be it enacted, that none shall inter-marry with any related to them, whether by blood relationship or by affinity, within the following degrees, as set forth in the annexed schedule:—

[Schedule of Prohibited Degrees.]

(Then suppose Archbishop Parker’s Table of Prohibited Degrees here annexed as the schedule.)

The Act would then continue:—

[Brother to marry deceased Brother’s Wife, to raise up seed to his Brother.]

§ 2.  Provided always, that, in reference to the above prohibition of the brother taking his brother’s widow, it shall yet be lawful, authorized and required (under penalty of a stigma of disgrace, to be attached to him who fails in compliance), that in the case of a man’s brother dying childless, in order to prevent the extinction of a house in Israel, his brother shall take the deceased brother’s wife, and raise up seed unto his brother; and, therefore, that the first-born child of such union shall succeed in the name of the brother who is dead, and be accounted and taken by the law of this land as not of the family of the second brother, but of the first, and shall be the heir, both in name and possessions, of that deceased brother, whose widow’s child he is.

[But none to take a wife to her sister, beside the other in her life-time.]

§ 3.  But, inasmuch as in the case of two brothers having married two sisters, the enactment of the preceding section might, and, in the event of one brother dying childless, would, authorize and require a man to take to wife two sisters, his brother’s widow being in such case his own wife’s sister, and whereas, if his own wife should at such time be alive, this might lead to rivalry and vexation, be it further enacted, that nothing herein enacted, in the previous section or in any part of this Act, shall authorize, permit or require any brother, even for the purpose of saving a house and family from extinction, to take to wife the sister of his own wife, his said wife her sister being yet alive; and be it therefore enacted, that in such case, where such would be the result of the enactment of the previous section of this Act the provision of the said previous section shall become inoperative and of none effect, rather than a man take a wife to her sister to vex her, beside the other, in her lifetime.

Upon this illustration I will only ask—Would not such an Act of Parliament be perfectly distinct and clear?  Could any one possibly misunderstand it?  Would not every clause and section have its own plain and intelligible sense?  Especially would not the last clause or section have a full and sufficient both sense and application without any man’s dreaming for a single moment of there being contained in it a repeal of any portion of the table or schedule of degrees?  I say contained in it, because no doubt the second section would contain something of this kind, and yet, be it observed, not a repeal, but a partial exception; that is, in one particular case, and for one particular specified purpose, the second section would modify one entry in the table, that of the brother’s wife or sister’s husband (as it is confessed on all hands, the law of the Levirate, Deut. xxv., does modify the law of the 16th verse of Lev. xviii.), but even so, I must insist upon it, not repealing it; for the exception would operate only when the brother had died childless, leaving the entry in the schedule in fulness of prohibition in all other cases.  And it is beyond all question that that modification would be due to the second and not to the third section of the Act.  The third or last section would have nothing to do with any relaxation of the law, but would be merely a restrictive provision in relation to the working of the previous section, being, as I have all along been shewing, a narrowing, not an enlarging the liberty given under the exception in the previous clause and having no further bearing:—therefore having nothing to do with any entry in the schedule; nothing to do with the permission to take the brother’s wife or the sister’s husband, and, if so, nothing at all to do with the object for which that clause, so to speak, is used by the promoters of the change in our law, as proposed in the Wife’s Sister’s Marriage