Ethics: Strange Question Concerning Marriage

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N. Eshelman

N. Eshelman

Puritan Board Senior
So my wife and I were discussing a strange situation last night. I am really unsure at the counsel that I would give. Can you all help?

A young man and a young woman are each adopted and they get married. A couple of years into their marriage they find out that they both share the same biological father. This makes them 1/2 brother and sister.

What is the counsel to them? Is it lawful for them to remain married, or does the fact that they are related too closely according to the laws of affinity mean that they were never married to begin with?

I suppose it could happen.... and does.
 
A young man and a young woman are each adopted and they get married. A couple of years into their marriage they find out that they both share the same biological father. This makes them 1/2 brother and sister.
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A reoccurring theme in literature throughout history. In the Silmarillion Tolkien employs it as well

Before Moses, it was perfectly fine, and Abraham and Sarah who shared a parent were a lawful couple, but after Moses it became illegal.

I believe the thing to keep in mind is that sex by itself doesn't make a marriage, but the legal oath. Since the oath was illegal, the marriage is void, as it was based on an illegal oath. We have the same thing in contract law here in California. I can draw up an illegal contract, and my customer can sign it, but neither of us would have recourse to the court system here in California if either my customer or myself become dissatisfied.

So, the the marriage is annulled, and any further sexual contact is sin. Not that the yuck factor wouldn't normally be enough for the couple to separate.
 
TimV said:
A young man and a young woman are each adopted and they get married. A couple of years into their marriage they find out that they both share the same biological father. This makes them 1/2 brother and sister.
Click to expand...

A reoccurring theme in literature throughout history. In the Silmarillion Tolkien employs it as well

Before Moses, it was perfectly fine, and Abraham and Sarah who shared a parent were a lawful couple, but after Moses it became illegal.

I believe the thing to keep in mind is that sex by itself doesn't make a marriage, but the legal oath. Since the oath was illegal, the marriage is void, as it was based on an illegal oath. We have the same thing in contract law here in California. I can draw up an illegal contract, and my customer can sign it, but neither of us would have recourse to the court system here in California if either my customer or myself become dissatisfied.

So, the the marriage is annulled, and any further sexual contact is sin. Not that the yuck factor wouldn't normally be enough for the couple to separate.
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Interesting.

I am not saying I disagree, but my initial response to the OP (before reading your post) was that the marriage would remain valid based on 1 Cor 7 which says that believers and unbelievers (another unlawful marriage) should stay married.

:2cents:
 
I think it would be tragic. How do you just undo a loving marriage? The people weren't raised together so they do not have a brother-sister relationship.
 
Janis, it's from Deut 27

22 "Cursed is the man who sleeps with his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother."
Then all the people shall say, "Amen!"
 
I agree with Tim, though I think it should be stressed that they are not, and have not been, in sin in the time before they knew. They had every legitimate, Biblical reason to believe their marriage was lawful, along with all activity in it. Only after the revelation are they in sin for acting married.

What an awful situation, though. Truly tragic on all levels. Stupid, sin-cursed world where believers can be subjected to such things.
 
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I am not saying I disagree, but my initial response to the OP (before reading your post) was that the marriage would remain valid based on 1 Cor 7 which says that believers and unbelievers (another unlawful marriage) should stay married.
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In this case that wouldn't apply. You can sinfully get married, and the Lord was clear about that, as are our Confessions. But even if a woman who unBiblically divorces her husband gets married, it's a legal marriage even though it's sinful.

And speaking practically, think about people in your church! Most of us know members in good standing who are remarried, and in many cases they remarried against Scriptural rules. But do you excommunicate or force a divorce upon someone whom you just found out unBiblically remarried 25 years ago? No, you don't in any confessional Reformed church.

But in cases of incest, both in the church and I believe most modern States, the act of sex itself is criminal. There was a court case in Germany last year that was in the news where a brother and sister were ordered by the court not to sleep together, and here in the States there's not a month that goes by where you don't hear about some father who's jail for relations with his daughter.

And now that I've posted my daily unfeeling post, time for a second cup of coffee.
 
Private Practice?

Does your question involve the issue of sperm donors vs siblings placed for adoption? (yes, this opens an issue about donors and society)
 
Oh yeah, they happen, not only with siblings but cousins.

My ex-sister in law got pregnant with her daughter, never married the father, moved away to another city and state. Years later, her daughter living with her grandparents move back to the town where her father lives.

She's in school and meets a young man, and starts dating him, as they spend time together she gets pregnant, now they decide it's time to introduce the families..turns out the young man is her bio-father's nephew. They decided to keep the child, and marry anyway.
 
BJClark said:
Oh yeah, they happen, not only with siblings but cousins.

My ex-sister in law got pregnant with her daughter, never married the father, moved away to another city and state. Years later, her daughter living with her grandparents move back to the town where her father lives.

She's in school and meets a young man, and starts dating him, as they spend time together she gets pregnant, now they decide it's time to introduce the families..turns out the young man is her bio-father's nephew. They decided to keep the child, and marry anyway.
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Try doing genealogical research on southern families :p Everyone is related to everyone else.
 
In Gods eyes, marriage between a brother and sister is not valid and does not consititue a marriage. therfore, I think its rather easy. they before God were not married to begin with. so they should file the state documents to get "divorced", repent of thier sins, and perhaps seperate i.e move to seperate places and limit contact with eachother while their emotions cool down, and a re established brother/sister relationship can be had.
 
It's tough, because the OP says they are 1/2 brother and sister. With a different mother, I would say it depends on their own "gross" factor. God hates divorce, so I would say it is up to them. Since this is 'hypothetical', it would more depend on the state laws, and any exemption clauses in them. And what they want to live with. And for once, I will say this is in my never to be humble opinion. :p
 
After thinking over the issue a little, I have still come to no fixed conclusion, but I am now starting to learn towards the view that it would be permissible for them to chose to remain married.

Firstly, like I said, I have not come to any conclusive view on the subject, but I am not convinced that 1 Cor 7 (which allows believers and unbelievers, another sinful marriage, to stay married) is not applicable. God views affinity with unbelievers as sinful as well. Why is one marriage valid but sinful while the other is not valid in the first place? I can’t remember the verse off hand, but in the OT Nehemiah did force Israelites who married pagans to divorce, so there does not seem to be such a clear cut distinction to me.

So if there seem to be bible reasons for this couple to stay together, and bible reasons they might need to separate, I would say based on the principle that God prefers mercy to sacrifice (Matt 12:7), that a case can be made that this couple may stay together.

I would back up that reasoning by noting that since God did allow siblings to marry before Moses, such intermarriage is not against his inherent moral nature, or the way he made the human race.

Hence, at present, I would tend toward thinking such a marriage could be allowed to remain intact.
 
This is why - at least it was the case when we got married; I don't know what they do now - each party has to state on the application for a marriage license their respective parents' full names (mothers' maiden names). If either party to the application has a mother/father with the same name as the other corresponding parent, well, maybe there should be some investigation into it!

Sperm donors are a whole other evil. The way the sperm is obtained is immoral; the whole thing shouldn't happen in the first place.

Margaret
 
Why is one marriage valid but sinful while the other is not valid in the first place?
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Because one is an illegal contract that was never valid to begin with. The other was a binding legal contract that was sinfully entered into.


I would back up that reasoning by noting that since God did allow siblings to marry before Moses, such intermarriage is not against his inherent moral nature, or the way he made the human race.
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Then there's nothing inherently immoral about me marrying one of my daughters.

I don't think you should look at sin as some sort of absolute. Something is sin because God says it is, not necessarily for something intrinsic about an action. God says it is a sin for a son to be punished for the crimes of the father, therefore genocide is a sin. But when God ordered the Canaanite genocide, He ordered the death of children.

I repeat, under God's law one commits sin by punishing a child for something he didn't do, and a magistrate would be punished for doing so under God's law. But God can turn around and order the exact opposite, and the action becomes good.

It's the same way with incest. It is now wrong (unless one in a non historic Reformed moment claims it falls now within the bounds of Christian liberty), and we don't have the authority to allow it, either as government or church.

What was the sin Paul criticised in 1 Corinthians 5?

1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named[a] among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife! 2 And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.
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It is texts like this that have convinced the church throughout the ages that the laws of consanguinity are moral rather than ceremonial. And just because Adam was allowed this doesn't make it morally neutral, and the fact that God is desires mercy and hates divorce doesn't change anything.
 
satz said:
After thinking over the issue a little, I have still come to no fixed conclusion, but I am now starting to learn towards the view that it would be permissible for them to chose to remain married.

...

So if there seem to be bible reasons for this couple to stay together, and bible reasons they might need to separate, I would say based on the principle that God prefers mercy to sacrifice (Matt 12:7), that a case can be made that this couple may stay together.

I would back up that reasoning by noting that since God did allow siblings to marry before Moses, such intermarriage is not against his inherent moral nature, or the way he made the human race.
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You are correct in noting that since marriages with one common parent were legal before Moses they are therefore not aginst God's inherent moral nature but rather are prohibited only as a Sinai covenant stipulation. But not all Sinaitic stipulations are inapplicable today. As the Confession says "the general equity may require" and when it does, the Sinaitic stipulation under discussion remains valid. So an additional factor needing consideration here is whether or not the Sinaitic limitations of permissable marriage partners will remain just if applied outside the Sinai covenantal context.

Is it possible to show why this stipulation was included in Sinai? If we can do so we may be able to determine whether or not it remains valid today.
 
TimV said:
What was the sin Paul criticised in 1 Corinthians 5?

1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named[a] among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife! 2 And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.
Click to expand...

It is texts like this that have convinced the church throughout the ages that the laws of consanguinity are moral rather than ceremonial. And just because Adam was allowed this doesn't make it morally neutral, and the fact that God is desires mercy and hates divorce doesn't change anything.
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Adam was not allowed half sibling marriage (HSM). Abraham and Sarah were the Genesis example and there is no indication in the text that God gave them a special exception or that the practice was at all frowned upon at the time.

The cases are not necessarily parallel as the degrees of kinship are not the same. The Gentiles knew incest with a father's wife was wrong, but given the testimony of Genesis that half sibling marriage was practised before Moses, we cannot automatically conclude that HSM is necessarily wrong outside Sinai.

Another issue to be considered is that marriage is not only a covenant but a sexual relationship. Quite aside from questions of whether or not the two individuals rightly entered the covenant of marriage, or whether the covenant is valid, something else has also taken place. For if "the two will become one flesh" happens when a man goes to a prostitute 1 Cor. 6:16, then the two half siblings have also become one flesh. If HSM couples separate, they will be denying that reality and causing great pain to themselves and each other.
Before we suggest separation, we must be absolutely certain it is biblically required or we will be sinning against the couple.
 
Tim,

Just to clarify, I was never suggesting that the laws of consanguinity no longer apply today.

What I was questioning was why a marriage that sins by affinity (with unbelievers) is legitimate but a marriage that sins by consanguinity is null and void. I don't see the difference.

I think this is where you give a reason:

TimV said:
Because one is an illegal contract that was never valid to begin with. The other was a binding legal contract that was sinfully entered into.
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Why is the marriage with a relative an illegal contract while the marriage to an unbeliever is a legal one? By legal do you mean the law of the land?

Does anyone know if such a situation were to happen would the law of the land recognize their marriage, or would it be void?


It is texts like this that have convinced the church throughout the ages that the laws of consanguinity are moral rather than ceremonial. And just because Adam was allowed this doesn't make it morally neutral, and the fact that God is desires mercy and hates divorce doesn't change anything.
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I'll repeat again I fully believe the laws of consanguinity are fully applicable today. However, I do think the fact that God desires mercy is relevant (not that is necessarily decides the issue), because God has already shown that he allows sinful marriages to stay together, and I would be unmerciful to require a couple to split up if they had no knowledge of their relation when they got married.
 
Hi Janis. Both Timo and I address that a few posts up.

Why is the marriage with a relative an illegal contract while the marriage to an unbeliever is a legal one? By legal do you mean the law of the land?
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Mark, when Christ told the woman at the well she had had 5 husbands we may rightly infer from the context that at least some of those marriages would have been forbidden by Christ's teachings, and our confessions. But Christ said all 5 were indeed husbands. They were all legal contracts.

As far as an illegal contract, it's the same here where I live and where you live in Australia. It is against the law to marry a half sister, so that marriage can't be valid. I'll leave it up to the law students and practitioners here, but I think they agree that, say, a prenup agreement wouldn't be able to be enforced if one party could prove the marriage was illegal. But in the case of a marriage that is immoral, like when a woman who leaves her husband to find greener pastures, the prenup would be binding, all things being even.

I'll even go out on a limb and guess that if a couple were members of either your denomination or mine, and the Elders found out it was a case of half siblings, the church would insist they split up. I can't see a big liberal church doing anything about it, but I may be wrong. Perhaps Grymir could look into what his denomination would do.
 
Sins of the father. If this father had kept up a relationship will all his children none of this madness would have occurred. The father should be given 39 strokes.
 
The Gentiles knew incest with a father's wife was wrong, but given the testimony of Genesis that half sibling marriage was practised before Moses, we cannot automatically conclude that HSM is necessarily wrong outside Sinai.
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I didn't mean to imply it was wrong outside of Sinai. I don't really recognize the concept of Sinai in that way. I meant the church has always held to the OT laws (sometimes making them even stricter) of consanguinity since Moses.
 
Mr. Vaughan,

What if the married couple had a child and then later found out they were brother and sister. What should be done?
 
Mr. Vaughan,

What if the married couple had a child and then later found out they were brother and sister. What should be done?
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Again, an unfortunate result of sin that Keon and Margaret referred to. Margaret's point could be drawn out at some time. Sin complicates things.

We have this case all the time. I knew of one case in great detail, where the maid of friend of mine (a very prominent COE pastor) in South Africa was abused as a little girl by her father. As happens occasionally in these cases, the young woman was so twisted by her treatment at the hands of the father she wouldn't leave him. The maid wasn't a member of his church, and I'll not go into anymore detail, as the point is this is a similar case to your hypothetical one, in that there was mutual consent between the father and daughter.

To keep things seeming less tragic and emotional, it often helps to look at a situation from different angles. So I ask you, what would your church do in such a circumstance, and assume the church should do the same with half-siblings.

First, the "marriage" if there was any ceremony at all, is annulled. Second, the couple is instructed, on pain of discipline, to cease sexual relations. Remember, such persons are cursed, and the discipline would be for their own good (as well as society's good, preventing other children who are almost guaranteed to have genetic difficulties, etc..). As to the child, it's not his fault, and provision would be made in the normal manor as to which parent his stayed with, visitation, etc...
 
Hmm, the PCUSA? Just what would they do? Let's see, all we get is the love of God, how God can make your life better, and, oh yea, the gay marriage thingy. hmm, well, if they were gay brother and brother, that would be O.k. But not-gay brother and sister, well, they would condem that! :p
 
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