Testimonia

{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>As, therefore, the human race, subsequently to the first\r\nmarriage of the man who was made of dust, and his wife who\r\nwas made out of his side, required the union of males and\r\nfemales in order that it might multiply, and as there were no\r\nhuman beings except those who had been born of these two,\r\nmen took their sisters for wives,—an act which was as certainly\r\ndictated by necessity in these ancient days as afterwards it\r\nwas condemned by the prohibitions of religion. For it is\r\nvery reasonable and just that men, among whom concord is\r\nhonourable and useful, should be bound together by various\r\nrelationships; and that one man should not himself sustain\r\nmany relationships, but that the various relationships should\r\nbe distributed among several, and should thus serve to bind\r\ntogether the greatest number in the same social interests.\r\n\"Father\" and \"father-in-law\" are the names of two relationships.\r\nWhen, therefore, a man has one person for his\r\nfather, another for his father-in-law, friendship extends itself\r\nto a larger number. But Adam in his single person was\r\nobliged to hold both relations to his sons and daughters, for\r\nbrothers and sisters were united in marriage. So too Eve\r\nhis wife was both mother and mother-in-law to her children\r\nof both sexes; while, had there been two women, one the\r\nmother, the other the mother-in-law, the family affection\r\nwould have had a wider field. Then the sister herself by\r\nbecoming a wife sustained in her single person two relationships,\r\nwhich, had they been distributed among individuals, one\r\nbeing sister, and another being wife, the family tie would have\r\nembraced a greater number of persons. But there was then\r\nno material for effecting this, since there were no human\r\nbeings but the brothers and sisters born of those two first\r\nparents. Therefore, when an abundant population made it\r\npossible, men ought to choose for wives women who were not\r\nalready their sisters; for not only would there then be no<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_79\">[Pg 79]</a></span>\r\nnecessity for marrying sisters, but, were it done, it would be\r\nmost abominable. For if the grandchildren of the first pair,\r\nbeing now able to choose their cousins for wives, married\r\ntheir sisters, then it would no longer be only two but three\r\nrelationships that were held by one man, while each of these\r\nrelationships ought to have been held by a separate individual,\r\nso as to bind together by family affection a larger number.\r\nFor one man would in that case be both father, and father-in-law,\r\nand uncle<a id=\"FNanchor_181_181\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_181_181\">[181]</a> to his own children (brother and sister now\r\nman and wife); and his wife would be mother, aunt, and\r\nmother-in-law to them; and they themselves would be not\r\nonly brother and sister, and man and wife, but cousins also,\r\nbeing the children of brother and sister. Now, all these\r\nrelationships, which combined three men into one, would have\r\nembraced nine persons had each relationship been held by\r\none individual, so that a man had one person for his sister,\r\nanother his wife, another his cousin, another his father, another\r\nhis uncle, another his father-in-law, another his mother, another\r\nhis aunt, another his mother-in-law; and thus the social bond\r\nwould not have been tightened to bind a few, but loosened to\r\nembrace a larger number of relations.</p>","headings":["THE CITY OF GOD.","BOOK FIFTEENTH.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45305-paragraph-136"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"1f8564a9e57394370f4481b39c73b87cdc7979441352e620037820cd3ace9f76","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume II","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Books XVII-XVIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[],"headings":[],"id":"pg45305-Footnote_181_181","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Original transcription title leaves state T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871; printed translator allocation retained. Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":"Footnote_181_181","source_ebook":45305,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_181_181\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_181_181\"><span class=\"label\">[181]</span></a> His own children being the children of his sister, and therefore his nephews.</p></div>","source_sha256":"7e0ced9e70512f3cf050b53c9d548e36b70d468d875153869f95d8aff5bbb530","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45305/pg45305-images.html#Footnote_181_181","text_sha256":"8847e3fae596e87d09fa183f4f589919ef7c563b0cebc574fd538b7d47c3a290","verified":false,"work_id":null}

references: [] | work_id: | origin: existing-private-derived-record | source: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45305/pg45305-images.html#Footnote_181_181