Mrs. Colin Mackenzie

“ If your aunt-in-law is your aunt, your sister-in-law must be your sister.
No man may ally himself with any "that is near of kin to him."
A sister is a near kinswoman v. 12, 13.
Near kinswomen of the wife are expressly prohibited v. 17.
The reason against marrying a wife's daughter or granddaughter is, that they are her "near kinswomen." So is her sister. Marriage with a brother's wife or an uncle's wife is pronounced "an unclean thing."
How then can marriage with a sister's husband be clean? How can you prove any difference between the relationships? ”

“ They come as being equally the husband's sisters, and the drooping wife is not distressed at the thought that one of them is to take her place in his affections, and be her successor. Finally, the relaxation of the law would destroy those happy relations which now exist between families united by marriage, and which add so much to the purity and enjoyment of domestic life. ”

“ In the twenty-fourth chapter it declares, "Marriage ought not to be within the degrees of consanguinity or affnity forbidden in the word, nor can such incestuous marriages ever be made lawful by any law of man or consent of parties, so as those persons may live together as man and wife. The man may not marry any of his wife's kindred nearer in blood than he may of his own ”

“ It is necessary therefore to shew that this prohibition rests upon higher authority, and those who might not care much for considerations respecting the general good and happiness would not willingly do anything contrary to Holy Scripture. They feel that they have in the Bible the only sufficient code of morals. Once depart from it, we know not whither our route may take us. Especially women feel truly that they owe to Christianity the equal position which they now hold towards men, and they would not wish the authority of the Bible tampered with. ”

“ And I hardly think any Christian can examine the question impartially without coming to the conclusion that such a marriage is directly contrary to the revealed Law of God, and therefore no marriage at all. To sum up the question—
I.—Man and wife are one. ”

“ If these laws are not binding, there is no other Scriptural ground for prohibiting marriage with an aunt or daughter-in-law, step-daughter or granddaughter, or even the nearest relations; for a sense of propriety, or inward sense of right is no proof to another person who may choose to deny it. ”

“ This wholly excludes the favourite argument, that a wife's sister is the most proper person to have charge of her children which in many cases might be urged with superior force in regard to her Mother. Such opinions of man's corrupt heart and reason prove nothing as to the rightness of any step ”

“ This absolute unity and identity of man and wife is used as the type of the perfect union between Christ and His Church. He is our Head (Eph. v. 23,) "and we are members of His body," and after His example "so ought men to love their wives as (being) their own bodies." He that loveth his wife loveth himself, for no man ever yet hated his own flesh, &c., see (1 Cor. xi. 2.) ”