| Affinity (law) |
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The subject is chiefly important from the matrimonial prohibitions by which the Canon Law has restricted relations by affinity. Taking the table of degrees within which marriage is prohibited on account of consanguinity, the rule has been thus extended to affinity, so that wherever relationship to a man himself would be a bar to marriage, relationship to his deceased wife will be the same bar, and vice versa on the husband's decease. See Affinity (canon Law) for more discussion. Briefly, direct affinity is a bar to marriage. This rule has been founded chiefly on interpretations of the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus. Formerly by law in England , marriages within the degrees of affinity were not absolutely null, but they were liable to be annulled by ecclesiastical process during the lives of both parties; in other words, the incapacity was only a Canonical , not a civil, disability. By the Marriage Act 1835 all marriages of this kind not disputed before the passing of the act were declared absolutely valid, while all subsequent to it were declared null. This rendered null in England, and not merely voidable, a marriage with a deceased wife's sister or niece. (See Consanguinity , Marriage .) REFERENCES
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