Reply to Cate's "Commandments"

See, I found that part really interesting -- I'm not sure if the society was polygamous at the time, but it seems to be an "incest law" for a polygamous society, where blood ties are a little harder to figure out.

This passage confused me, because it took a while for me to realize that "Uncover the shame of X" was a euphemism for "See X naked". It's a list of folks you shouldn't lust after because they're your family. "No man shall uncover the shame of one with whom he hath kinship; for I am the Lord" ... makes sense to me! As Machiavelli would argue, the best place for laws to be handed down from is God Himself, since then they're really hard to amend on a whim. So the folks that count as family are:

• your father's wife (not just your mother)


• your sister (daughter of your father or mother or father's other wife)


• your grandchild, from a son or a daughter


• your aunt, maternal or paternal


• your uncles' wives


• your son's wife ... I find the tone here amusing "Thou shalt not uncover the shame of thy son's wife, for she is thy son's wife". The idea of God's exasperation with having to lay down the law so specifically for his depraved creations makes me laugh.


• your daughter


• the wife of your nephew


• your brother's wife (as long as he's living)


• this last one is confusing, but I think it's saying don't marry a woman and her daughter at once, or a woman and her granddaughter at once, or two sisters

If religion is the source of laws, then it makes sense for religious documents to include some laws! And -- I mean, this is pretty much more comprehensive than "Thou shalt not covet thy neigbor's wife" -- it's a complicated system of social taboos, covering under incest a whole number of people who one isn't really related to by blood. I don't know, it doesn't bother me. It seems like the kind of thing a document like Augustine's would consider one of the "remnants of its times" which wouldn't inform 'present-day' religious belief.