IV. (22) There follows after this a command not to espouse one’s sister: which is an injunction of great excellence, and one which contributes very greatly to temperance and good order. Therefore the Athenian lawgiver, Solon, when he permitted men to marry their sisters by the same father, forbade them to marry those by the same mother. But the lawgiver of the Lacedaemonians, on the other hand, allowed of marriages between brothers and sisters by the same mothers, but forbade those between brothers and sisters by the same father. (23) While the lawgiver of the Egyptians, ridiculing the cautious timidity of the others as if they had established imperfect ordinances, gave the reins to lasciviousness, supplying in great abundance that most incurable evil of intemperance both to body and soul, and permitting men fearlessly and with impunity to marry all their sisters, whether by both parents or by one, or by either, whether father or mother, and that too not only if younger than, but even when older than, or of the same age as themselves; for twins are very often born, which nature, indeed, at their very birth has dissevered and separated, but which incontinence and love of pleasure has invited to an association which ought never to be entered into, and to a most inharmonious agreement. (24) But the most sacred Moses, rejecting all those ordinances with detestation, as being quite inconsistent with and at variance with any praiseworthy kind of constitution, and as laws which encouraged and trained people to the most disgraceful of all habits, almost peremptorily prohibited any connection with a man’s sister, whether by both parents, or whether only by one of the two; (25) for why should any one seek to deface the beauty of modesty? And why make virgins destitute of all modesty, to whom it is becoming to blush? And, moreover, why should one be willing to limit the associations and connections with other men, and to confine a most honourable thing within the narrow space of the walls of a single house, which ought rather to be extended and diffused over all continents, and islands, and the whole inhabited world? For the intermarriages with strangers produce new relationships, which are in no respect inferior to those which proceed from ties of blood.
V. (26) On which account our lawgiver has also forbidden other matrimonial connections, commanding that no man shall marry his granddaughter, whether she be his son’s or his daughter’s child; nor his niece; nor his aunt; nor his grandmother, by either father or mother; nor any woman who has been the wife of his uncle, or of his son, or of his brother; nor, again, any step-daughter, whether virgin or widow, whether his own wife be alive or even after her death. For, in principle, a step-father is the same as a father, and therefore he ought to look upon his wife’s daughter in the same light as his own. (27) Again. He does not permit the same man to marry two sisters, neither at the same time nor at different periods, even if he have put away the one whom he previously married; for while she is living, whether she be cohabiting with him or whether she be put away, or if she be living as a widow, or if she be married to another man, still he did not consider it holy for her sister to enter upon the portion of her who had been unfortunate; by this injunction teaching sisters not to violate the requirements of justice towards their relations, nor to make a stepping stone of the disasters of one so united to themselves by blood, nor to acquiesce in or to pride themselves in receiving attentions from those who have shown themselves enemies to their relations, or to reciprocate any kind offices received from them. (28) For from such things as these arise bitter jealousies and quarrels, and enmities which scarcely admit of reconciliation, but which bring on indescribable hosts of misfortunes; for that would be just as if the different members of the body were to abandon the harmony and fellowship in which they are put together by nature, and to quarrel with one another, which circumstance must necessarily cause incurable diseases and mischiefs. And sisters are like limbs, which, although they are separated from one another, are nevertheless all adapted to one another by nature and natural relationship. And jealousy, which is the most grievous of all passions, is continually producing new, and terrible, and incurable mischiefs. (29) Again. Moses commands, do not either form a connection of marriage with one of another nation, and do not be seduced into complying with customs inconsistent with your own, and do not stray from the right way and forget the path which leads to piety, turning into a road which is no road. And, perhaps, you will yourself resist, if you have been from your earliest youth trained in the best possible instruction, which your parents have instilled into you, continually filling your mind with the sacred laws. And the anxiety and fear which parents feel for their sons and daughters is not slight; for, perchance, they may be allured by mischievous customs instead of genuine good ones, and so they may be in danger of learning to forget the honour belonging to the one God, which is the beginning and end of extreme unhappiness. (30) But if, proceeds the lawgiver, a woman having been divorced from her husband under any pretence whatever, and having married another, has again become a widow, whether her second husband is alive or dead, still she must not return to her former husband, but may be united to any man in the world rather than to him, having violated her former ties which she forgot, and having chosen new allurements in the place of the old ones. (31) But if any man should choose to form an alliance with such a woman, he must be content to bear the reputation of effeminacy and a complete want of manly courage and vigour, as if he had been castrated and deprived of the most useful portion of the soul, namely, that disposition which hates iniquity, by which the affairs both of houses and cities are placed on a good footing, and as having stamped deeply on his character two of the greatest of all iniquities, adultery and the employment of a pander; for the reconciliations which take place subsequently are indications of the death of each. Let him, therefore, suffer the punishment appointed, together with his wife.
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