“ The question of consanguinity owes its great importance to the relationship it bears to the laws of marriage and inheritance. For instance, the law forbids marriage between persons within certain degrees of consanguinity and affinity, a prohibition which applies with equal force to a bastard as well as to those born in wedlock. The laws of inheritance and descent are regulated in a great measure according to consanguinity, however much they may vary in different jurisdictions. ”

“ The degrees of collateral consanguinity were differently reckoned in the civil and in the canon law. “The civil law reckons the number of descents between the persons on both sides from the common ancestor. The canon law counts the number of descents between the common ancestor and the two persons on one side only,” and always on the side of the person who is more distant from the common ancestor. English law follows the canon law in beginning at the common ancestor and reckoning downwards. ”