Leviticus 18:6-18

PROHIBITION OF INCESTUOUS MARRIAGES, Leviticus 18:6-18.

These fall into three classes: 1.) blood-relationships proper, 7-13; 2.) the wives of blood-relations, 14-16; 3.) the blood relations of the wife. This prohibition is not grounded on the eternal principles of absolute morality, since the command to “multiply and replenish the earth” must have involved the marriage of brothers and sisters in the family of Adam, and since, also, Abraham married his half sister, Jacob two sisters at a time, Amram his aunt Jochebed, and Judah married Tamar, the widow of his own son, with no indication of the divine disapproval; and by the commandment of the Levitical law the brother must marry the wife of his deceased childless brother. Still it must be confessed that the horror naturalis, or revulsion of feeling at the thought of marrying one’s mother or daughter is very closely allied to the abhorrence of the violation of the seventh commandment.