"incest" (Legal term)

From a message by a Curious Questioner--
>CQ> Subject: Be not ignorant

>>RC> Incest is DEFINED as "Sexual intercourse between persons too closely related to marry LEGALLY." (--Webster's dictionary)

>CQ> Strange. I have the largest Websters ever put on the market. And it's preferred meaning is "Sexual intercourse between closely related persons."

My older and LARGER Webster's dictionary says: "The crime of cohabitation or sexual commerce between persons related within the degrees wherein marriage is prohibited by the law of a country."

The American Heritage dictionary says: "Sexual union between persons so closely related that their marriage is illegal."

The Wycliffe Bible encyclopedia says: "The crime of cohabitation or sexual intercourse with those kin or relatives who are forbidden in the Mosaic law (Lev 18:1-18)."

The List includes: (1) mother, (2) stepmother, (3) sister or half sister, (4) grand-daughter, (5) daughter of a stepmother, (6) an aunt on either side, (7) an uncle's wife on the father's side, (8) daughter-in-law, (9) sister-in-law, (10) a woman and her daughter or her grand-daughter, (11) the sister of a living wife.

Numbers 1,2,3,8 & 10 above, were to be punished by death. The others were to bear their iniquity and die childless.

BEFORE there was such a law, such marriages were not condemned. The Lord obviously gave Eve to be Adam's wife, although they both had the same father, and he blessed them and commanded them to be fruitful and multiply. Their marriage was legal. The marriage of Cain and "his wife" was legal. They should be judged by what law they had, not what law you have.

Grace be to them that receive the love of the truth. Amen. --Richard