Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Wesley on Marriage and Deflowering of Women

Mon 14 Nov 1785. This week, I read over again and carefully considered Mr. Fry’s Tract upon marriage. I wonder it is not more known, as there is nothing on the head like it in the English tongue. I still think he has proved to a demonstration that no marriages are forbidden, either by the law of God or of England, but those of brothers and sisters, and those in the ascending and descending line. The contrary supposition seems to be built wholly in a misinterpretation of that expression in the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus, ‘Thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.’ But this, he clearly shows, does not mean to marry a woman, but to deflower her.