-----Original Message----- From: Adrian Bruce Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2014 7:34 PM To: sog-uk@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [SOG-UK] consanguinity If I recall correctly, the "logic" behind this was that a man and his wife became "one person". Therefore the wife's sister became the husband's sister and the husband could clearly not marry his own "sister". Adrian B I agree; the logic is impeccable. But if the first premise of an argument is no more than an assertion/belief, the logic is worthless. George ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOG-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Just to note that consanguinity is the wrong word for marriage to deceased wife's sisters etc - English law distinguished between "kindred" (i.e. blood relationship) and "affinity" (relationship through marriage). A relationship between in-laws could never give rise to a prosecution for incest. The idea that wife and husband constituted one person (person, of course, in the legal sense!) remained true even after Gladstone's Married Women's Property Act of 1870 - indeed it still lingers on today. The rationale behind it seems to have been the social goal of not allowing property to be accumulated into too few hands. It was given religious overtones partly because of the marriage of Catherine of Aragon to Henry VIII (who was her deceased husband's brother), but it has nothing to do with consanguinity in the literal sense (though the word "cousin" which is related could often be used very loosely to include in-laws. Hector Davie