On 19/10/12 9:28 AM, Nasti J wrote:
On Oct 18, 6:12 pm, S Viemeister wrote:
On 10/18/2012 8:56 PM, Arcadian Rises wrote:

Wasn't a brother supposed to take care, even marry, the widow of his
deceased brother?

In the Old Testament, yes. Not all that long ago in the UK, it was
against the law to marry your deceased spouse's sibling.

But it WAS the Old Testament, specifically Leviticus Chapter 20, Verse
16, which stated: “If a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an
impurity; he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be
childless” that Henry VIII claimed as the reason for his divorce from
Catherine of Aragon. Despite the birth and good health of their
daughter Mary, Henry was convinced that a woman could not rule England
and that God had denied him his desired male heir as a fulfillment of
the Biblical sanction against his marriage to his brother Arthur's
widow (even though there were many who testified that marriage had
never been consummated AND the fact that the Pope had authorized the
subsequent wedding, setting aside the stricture and removing any bar
to their union.)


I don't think he was convinced of that at all. He just knew he needed a
male heir, and when the only one he could get was sickly, in the long
run we ended up with a line of disastrous Scots, followed by Dutch
couple, followed by Germans. He had, of course, foreseen all this and
was desperate.

--
Robert Bannister