And in Lynchburg Virginina, abt 1880, my ancestor married the younger of two
sisters.  When she died shortly after childbirth he then married the elder
sister. They had a long married life and in fact as is typical the woman
outlived the man.
Douglas Burnett
Satellite Beach
FL

On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 3:51 PM, Michael B. Chesson <[log in to unmask]
> wrote:

> And don't forget that Dickens married a sister of his late wife; there is
> an attraction sometimes, for some people, to the sibling of a beloved
> spouse.
>
> Michael Chesson
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history on behalf
> of Jon Kukla
> Sent: Fri 9/18/2009 3:38 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Marriage law & Incest
>
>
>
> Henry,
>   I dug into this a while back when I was research Mr Jefferson's Women
> - but it was one of those things that ended up on the cutting-room floor.
>  Marryng a sibling of one's deceased spouse WAS a pretty common event in
> colonial Virginia -  . . . anyone who's done much research in
> colonial Virginia families -- I dare say in colonial American families -
> has
> stumbled across plenty of examples, though of course its hard to put your
> hands on them when a question like this arises.  The VA-HIST archive may
> even have some queries and responses back in 04 or 05.
>   I had some very helpful email exchanges with Lorri Glover - who treated
> some of this in her book _All our relations : blood ties and emotional
> bonds
> among the early South Carolina gentry (Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University
> Press, 2000).
>   The upshot of it, as I recall, is that after the Reformation the Church
> of England retained the Catholic provisions of canon law that
> regarded remarriage to the sibling of a spouse as incest, but that those
> provisions were loosened in 18th-c Virginia - which would make the 19th law
> like the one you describe in effect a _reinstatement_ of mainstream
> Anglican/Catholic doctrine.
> All best,
> Jon
>
> --
> Jon Kukla
> www.JonKukla.com
> On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 3:04 PM, Henry Wiencek <[log in to unmask]
> >wrote:
>
> > I was surprised to read in Annette Gordon-Reed's book on the Hemingses
> that
> > in the early 19th century Virginia outlawed marriage between a man and
> his
> > deceased wife's sister, on the grounds that marrying a sister-in-law was
> > incest by affinity (not by blood). I don't know the text of the law, but
> > presumably the reverse was also true: a widow could not marry her
> > brother-in-law. It's my impression that in the earlier days such
> marriages
> > were relatively common in Virginia. My question for the lawyers on the
> list
> > is: does anyone know when Virginia repealed this ban - or is it still on
> > the
> > books? Would Virginia have recognized such a marriage if it had been
> > solemnized in another state or country?
> >
> > Henry Wiencek
> >
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