William McKee Dunn

Name: Is Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Lawful?
Author: William McKee Dunn

Is Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Lawful… (1883)

Summary

"Is Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Lawful?" by William McKee Dunn is a theological and legal treatise examining the permissibility of marrying the sister of a deceased spouse, grounded in biblical doctrine and biological principles. Dunn argues that such unions contravene divine law, emphasizing the bond of kinship formed through marriage and the prohibition against familial relationships.

Drawing on scripture and natural law, the text maintains that God's moral code, as reflected in the Levitical laws, forbids such relationships, dismissing arguments for exceptions or compassionate dispensations. The work combines religious, legal, and biological perspectives to assert that compliance with God's laws is absolute, regardless of social or emotional considerations.

Quotes from Is Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Lawful… (William McKee Dunn)

William McKee Dunn, Is Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Lawful… (1883)

“ As a judge refuses sympathy to be created in a law court, so must we.
But, it may be argued, the majority, either ignorantly or wilfully, are in favour of such a marriage being made legal by the law of the land, which is an impossible thing to be done in the sight of one who fears God.
Are we not told in God's Word over and over again that the world is at enmity with God? All history, too, shows that in any case contrary to nature, or, that is, God's laws, the mass are in the wrong, although for a time they may seemingly have their wilful way, and that the minority are in the right. ”

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Source: Wikisource

William McKee Dunn, Is Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Lawful… (1883)

“ It is absurd to think that God in the same breath, as it were, would both forbid and then allow the marriage. Besides in this case, according to the showing of nature, or true physiology, or God's law, there is no physiological or natural reason why a woman should marry her brother-in-law, because he can marry any one else (but not her by the law of God) . Naturally speaking, I say, there is no necessity for a man to marry his deceased wife's own sister to perpetuate his name. ”

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Source: Wikisource

William McKee Dunn, Is Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Lawful… (1883)

“ The law of God is, that man may marry after his wife's death another woman. The question is, Can that woman be your wife's own sister? What is God's law about marriage? He distinctly points out to us in His code that His law is that a man cannot marry his wife's own sister, as we have seen. His law cannot be dispensed with, unless God Himself dispenses with it. But we see not the slightest sign of a dispensation given by God, and there is no natural or physiological reason for it. He simply forbids marriages near of kin and polygamy. ”

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Source: Wikisource

William McKee Dunn, Is Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Lawful… (1883)

“ Yet God says that by the marriage they are brother and sister, so that they cannot marry.
The God of Nature has said from the beginning that man and wife are one flesh, and He has repeated it in the Christian dispensation. There is such a union of bloods by marriage that cannot be separated. Sanguinity is established by consanguinity, or the "uniting together of two bloods," so that the woman imparts her sanguinity to the man, and the man his to the woman—they become one flesh. ”

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Source: Wikisource

William McKee Dunn, Is Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Lawful… (1883)

“ The state of men, by the light of the Law at its re-promulgation at Mount Sinai, shows to us their forgetfulness or neglect of God's law by tradition, as handed down from Paradise. Let me ask, What was the proportion of the Israelites with the people of the earth, at the giving of the Law in writing on Mount Sinai? ”

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Source: Wikisource

William McKee Dunn, Is Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Lawful… (1883)

“ Then, shall we say that man, who is fallible,. knows better than God, who is infallible and the Author of nature? No.
It is, I repeat, one step on the way towards God's truth for man to say that consanguinity is established through offspring. ”

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Source: Wikisource

William McKee Dunn, Is Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Lawful… (1883)

“ Surely, now, these are the same for the woman, She cannot marry her uncle, either by blood or affinity. Her aunt's husband is as much her uncle by marriage as her father or mother's brother is by blood. ”

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Source: Wikisource

William McKee Dunn, Is Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Lawful… (1883)

“ In the Reformatio Legum of our Church, it is stated that "those degrees which affect the man, also affect the woman"—"paribus semper pro pinquitatum gradibus"—"being always equal degrees of relationship." ”

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Source: Wikisource

William McKee Dunn, Is Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Lawful… (1883)

“ If this be not so, then the very next marriage which is given, where the man may not marry his father's second wife, or, as it is commonly called, his step-mother, in the case of the woman would be, "but the woman may marry her step-father." ”

William McKee Dunn

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Quotes from Is Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Lawful… (William McKee Dunn)

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