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Objection 1: It would seem that affinity also is a cause of
affinity. For Pope Julius I says (cap. Contradicimus 35, qu.
iii): "No man may marry his wife's surviving blood-relation":
and it is said in the next chapter (cap. Porro duorum) that "the
wives of two cousins are forbidden to marry, one after the other, the
same husband." But this is only on account of affinity being
contracted through union with a person related by affinity. Therefore
affinity is a cause of affinity.
Objection 2: Further, carnal intercourse makes persons akin even as
carnal procreation, since the degrees of affinity and consanguinity are
reckoned equally. But consanguinity causes affinity. Therefore
affinity does also.
Objection 3: Further, things that are the same with one and the
same are the same with one another. But the wife contracts the same
relations with all her husband's kindred. Therefore all her
husband's kindred are made one with all who are related by affinity to
the wife, and thus affinity is the cause of affinity.
Objection 4: On the contrary, If affinity is caused by affinity a
man who has connection with two women can marry neither of them,
because then the one would be related to the other by affinity. But
this is false. Therefore affinity does not cause affinity.
Objection 5: Further, if affinity arose out of affinity a man by
marrying another man's widow would contract affinity with all her first
husband's kindred, since she is related to them by affinity. But
this cannot be the case because he would become especially related by
affinity to her deceased husband. Therefore, etc.
Objection 6: Further, consanguinity is a stronger tie than
affinity. But the blood-relations of the wife do not become
blood-relations of the husband. Much less, therefore, does affinity
to the wife cause affinity to her blood-relations, and thus the same
conclusion follows.
I answer that, There are two ways in which one thing proceeds from
another: in one way a thing proceeds from another in likeness of
species, as a man is begotten of a man: in another way one thing
proceeds from another, not in likeness of species; and this process is
always towards a lower species, as instanced in all equivocal agents.
The first kind of procession, however often it be repeated, the same
species always remains: thus if one man be begotten of another by an
act of the generative power, of this man also another man will be
begotten, and so on. But the second kind of procession, just as in
the first instance it produces another species, so it makes another
species as often as it is repeated. Thus by movement from a point
there proceeds a line and not a point, because a point by being moved
makes a line; and from a line moved lineally, there proceeds not a
line but a surface, and from a surface a body, and in this way the
procession can go no further. Now in the procession of kinship we find
two kinds whereby this tie is caused: one is by carnal procreation,
and this always produces the same species of relationship; the other is
by the marriage union, and this produces a different kind of
relationship from the beginning: thus it is clear that a married woman
is related to her husband's blood-relations not by blood but by
affinity. Wherefore if this kind of process be repeated, the result
will be not affinity but another kind of relationship; and consequently
a married party contracts with the affines of the other party a relation
not of affinity but of some other kind which is called affinity of the
second kind. And again if a person through marriage contracts
relationship with an affine of the second kind, it will not be affinity
of the second kind, but of a third kind, as indicated in the verse
quoted above (Article 1). Formerly these two kinds were included
in the prohibition, under the head of the justice of public honesty
rather than under the head of affinity, because they fall short of true
affinity, in the same way as the relationship arising out of
betrothal. Now however they have ceased to be included in the
prohibition, which now refers only to the first kind of affinity in
which true affinity consists.
Reply to Objection 1: A husband contracts affinity of the first
kind with his wife's male blood-relation, and affinity of the second
kind with the latter's wife: wherefore if the latter man dies the
former cannot marry his widow on account of the second kind of
affinity. Again if a man A marry a widow B, C, a relation of her
former husband being connected with B by the first kind of affinity,
contracts affinity of the second kind with her husband A; and D, the
wife of this relation C being connected, by affinity of the second
kind, with B, this man's wife contracts affinity of the third kind
with her husband A. And since the third kind of affinity was included
in the prohibition on account of a certain honesty more than by reason
of affinity, the canon (cap. Porro duorum 35, qu. iii) says:
"The justice of public honesty forbids the wives of two cousins to be
married to the same man, the one after the other." But this
prohibition is done away with.
Reply to Objection 2: Although carnal intercourse is a cause of
people being connected with one another, it is not the same kind of
connection.
Reply to Objection 3: The wife contracts the same connection with
her husband's relatives as to the degree but not as to the kind of
connection.
Since however the arguments in the contrary sense would seem to show
that no tie is caused by affinity, we must reply to them lest the
time-honored prohibition of the Church seem unreasonable.
Reply to Objection 4: As stated above, a woman does not contract
affinity of the first kind with the man to whom she is united in the
flesh, wherefore she does not contract affinity of the second kind with
a woman known by the same man; and consequently if a man marry one of
these women, the other does not contract affinity of the third kind
with him. And so the laws of bygone times did not forbid the same man
to marry successively two women known by one man.
Reply to Objection 5: As a man is not connected with his wife by
affinity of the first kind, so he does not contract affinity of the
second kind with the second husband of the same wife. Wherefore the
argument does not prove.
Reply to Objection 6: One person is not connected with me through
another, except they be connected together. Hence through a woman who
is affine to me, no person becomes connected with me, except such as
is connected with her. Now this cannot be except through carnal
procreation from her, or through connection with her by marriage: and
according to the olden legislation, I contracted some kind of
connection through her in both ways: because her son even by another
husband becomes affine to me in the same kind and in a different degree
of affinity, as appears from the rule given above: and again her
second husband becomes affine to me in the second kind of affinity.
But her other blood-relations are not connected with him, but she is
connected with them, either as with father or mother, inasmuch as she
descends from them, or, as with her brothers, as proceeding from the
same principle; wherefore the brother or father of my affine does not
become affine to me in any kind of affinity.
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