Leviticus 18:18
Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister
Both of them together, as Jarchi; two sisters at one and the same
time; so the Targum of Jonathan,
``a woman in the life of her sister thou shall not take;''
that is, in marriage, that sister being his wife; for the sense of
the Targumist can never be that a man might not take a woman for
his wife, she having a sister living, but not to take one sister to
another, or marry his first wife's sister, whether, as Maimonides
F19 says, she was sister by father or
mother's side, in marriage or in fornication:
to vex [her],
to uncover her nakedness;
two reasons are given, why, though polygamy, or having more wives
than one, was connived at, yet it was not allowed that a man should
have two sisters; partly, because they would be more apt to
quarrel, and be more jealous and impatient of one another, if more
favour was shown or thought to be shown to one more than another;
and partly, because it was a filthy and unbecoming action to
uncover the nakedness of one, or lie with one so nearly related to
his wife:
besides her in her life [time];
from whence some have concluded, and so many of the Jewish writers
F20, that a man might marry his wife's
sister after her death, but not while she was living; but the
phrase, "in her lifetime", is not to be joined to the phrase "thou
shall not take a wife"; but to the phrases more near, "to vex her
in her lifetime", or as long as she lived, and "to uncover her
nakedness by her"
F21, on the side of her, as long as she
lived; for that a wife's sister may be married to her husband, even
after her death, cannot be lawful, as appears from the general
prohibition, (
Leviticus
18:6 ) ; "none of you shall approach to him that is near of kin
to him"; and yet it is certain that a wife's sister is near akin to
a man; and from the prohibition of marriage with an uncle's wife,
with the daughter of a son-in-law, or of a daughter-in-law, (
Leviticus
18:14 Leviticus
18:17 ) ; now a wife's sister is nearer of kin than either of
these; and from the confusion that must follow in case of issue by
both, not only of degrees but appellation of kindred; one and the
same man, who as a father of children, and the husband of their
mother's sister, stands in the relation both of a father and an
uncle to his own children; the woman to the children of the
deceased sister stands in the relation both of a stepmother, and of
a mother's sister or aunt, and to the children that were born of
her, she stands in the relation both of a mother and an uncle's
wife; and the two sorts of children are both brethren and own
cousins by the mother's side, but of this (
See Gill on Leviticus
18:16) for more; some understand this of a prohibition of
polygamy, rendering the words, "thou shall not take one wife to
another"; but the former sense is best; polygamy being not
expressly forbidden by the law of Moses, but supposed in it, and
winked at by it; and words of relation being always used in all
these laws of marriage, in a proper and not in an improper sense:
there is a pretty good deal of agreement between these laws of
Moses and the Roman laws; by an edict of Dioclesian and Maximian
F23, it was made unlawful to contract
matrimony with a daughter, with a niece, with a niece's daughter,
with a grandmother, with a great-grandmother, with an aunt by the
father's side, with an aunt by the mother's side, with a sister's
daughter, and a niece from her, with a daughter-in-law to a second
husband, with a mother-in-law, with a wife or husband's mother, and
with a son's wife; and several of these laws are recommended by
Phocylydes, an Heathen poet, at least in a poem that hears his
name; and the marriage of a wife's sister after her death has been
condemned by several Christian councils
F24.