HARTFORD, JULY, 1789.

EXPLANATION of the REEZONS, why MARRIAGE iz PROHIBITED between NATURAL RELATIONS.

Much haz been said and written to ascertain between what relations marriage ought to be permitted. The civil, the canon, and the English laws, differ az to the degrees of consanguinity necessary to render this connection improper. A detail of the arguments on this subject, and even a recapitulation of the decrees of ecclesiastical councils, in the erly ages of the church, would be tedious and uninteresting. I shall only offer a few thoughts of my own on the question, with a view to illustrate a single point, which haz been agitated in modern times, and on which the different American states hav passed different decisions. The point iz, whether a man should be permitted to marry hiz former wife's sister. In some states this iz permitted; in others, prohibited.

Thoze who favor the prohibition, ground their reezon on the Levitical law, which says a man shall not marry hiz wife's sister, during the life of hiz wife, to vex her. This prohibition, while it restrains a man from having two sisters for wives at the same time, among a peeple where poligamy waz permitted, iz a negativ pregnant, and a strong argument that a man waz allowed, after the deth of a wife, to marry her sister.

The Jewish law, however divine, waz designed for a particular nation, and iz no farther binding upon other nations, than it respects the natural and social duties. In no one particular, hav men been more mistaken, than in explaining divine commands. It haz been sufficient for them to reseiv a law into the wil of God, without examining into the reezons for which the law waz revealed. They seem to hav inverted the foundation of moral obligation, in supposing the moral law to derive its propriety and fitness originally from the wil of Deity, rather than from the nature of things. They talk about the fitness and unfitness of things, independent, not only of society, but of God himself. Such wild notions, I presume, are not common. There could be no fitness nor unfitness of things, before things were made; nor could right and rong exist without social beings. The moral duties therefore are not right, merely because they are commanded by God; but they are commanded by him, because they are right. The propriety or fitness of them depends on the very nature of society; and this fitness, which waz coeval with creation, waz the ground of the divine command.[150]

The law of Moses, regulating marriages, waz founded on this propriety or fitness of things. A divine command givs a sanction to the law; but the propriety of it existed prior to the command. The reezons for prohibiting marriage between certain relations are important; yet they seem not to be understood. It haz been sufficient, in discussing this point, to say, such iz the law of God; and few attempts hav been made to find the reezons of it, by which alone its extent and authority can be ascertained.

There are two rules, furnished by the laws of nature, for regulating matrimonial connections. The first iz, that marriage, which iz a social and civil connection, should not interfere with a natural relation, so az to defeet or destroy its duties and rights. Thus it iz highly improper that an aunt should marry her nephew, or a grandfather hiz grand daughter; because the duties and rights of the natural relation, would be superseded by the positiv duties and rights of the civil connection.

The other rule iz much more important. It iz a law of nature that vegetables should degenerate, if planted continually on the same soil. Hence the change of seeds among farmers. Animals degenerate on the same principle. The physical causes of this law of nature, are perhaps among the arcana of creation; but the effects are obvious; and it iz surprizing that modern writers on law and ethics should pass over almost the only reezons of prohibiting marriage between blood relations. Consanguinity, and not affinity, iz the ground of the prohibition.[151]

It iz no crime for brothers and sisters to intermarry, except the fatal consequences to society; for were it generally practised, men would soon become a race of pigmies. It iz no crime for brothers and sisters children to intermarry, and this iz often practised; but such near blood connections often produce imperfect children. The common peeple hav hence drawn an argument to proov such connections criminal; considering weakness, sickness and deformity in the offspring az judgements upon the parents. Superstition iz often awake, when reezon iz asleep. It iz just az criminal for a man to marry hiz cousin, az it iz to sow flax every year on the same ground; but when he does this, he must not complain, if he haz an indifferent crop.

Here then the question occurs, iz it proper for a man to marry hiz wife's sister? The answer iz plain. The practice does not interfere with any law of nature or society; and there iz not the smallest impropriety in a man's marrying ten sisters of hiz wife in succession. There iz no natural relation destroyed; there iz no relation by blood; and cessante ratione, cessat et ipsa Lex; the law ceeses when the reezon of it ceeses.