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Objection 1: It would seem that the degrees of affinity do not
extend in the same way as the degrees of consanguinity. For the tie of
affinity is less strong than the tie of consanguinity, since affinity
arises from consanguinity in diversity of species, as from an equivocal
cause. Now the stronger the tie the longer it lasts. Therefore the
tie of affinity does not last to the same number of degrees as
consanguinity.
Objection 2: Further, human law should imitate Divine law. Now
according to the Divine law certain degrees of consanguinity were
forbidden, in which degrees affinity was not an impediment to
marriage: as instanced in a brother's wife whom a man could marry
although he could not marry her sister. Therefore now too the
prohibition of affinity and consanguinity should not extend to the same
degrees.
On the contrary, A woman is connected with me by affinity from the
very fact that she is married to a blood-relation of mine. Therefore
in whatever degree her husband is related to me by blood she is related
to me in that same degree by affinity: and so the degrees of affinity
should be reckoned in the same number as the degrees of consanguinity.
I answer that, Since the degrees of affinity are reckoned according
to the degrees of consanguinity, the degrees of affinity must needs be
the same in number as those of consanguinity. Nevertheless, affinity
being a lesser tie than consanguinity, both formerly and now, a
dispensation is more easily granted in the more remote degrees of
affinity than in the remote degrees of consanguinity.
Reply to Objection 1: The fact that the tie of affinity is less
than the tie of consanguinity causes a difference in the kind of
relationship but not in the degrees. Hence this argument is not to the
point.
Reply to Objection 2: A man could not take his deceased brother's
wife except, in the case when the latter died without issue, in order
to raise up seed to his brother. This was requisite at a time when
religious worship was propagated by means of the propagation of the
flesh, which is not the case now. Hence it is clear that he did not
marry her in his own person as it were, but as supplying the place of
his brother.
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