I was perusing Massachusetts law when I came upon these two sections.
The law prohibits people from marrying opposite sex relatives - but says nothing about marrying same sex family members. If two brothers wanted to get hitched, they would almost certainly be turned away, but what if they pointed out this kink in the law? The law appears to be on their side, after all…
No idea, but it’s funny that “son’s wife” and “husband’s father” are missing from the respective lists. I wonder if some legislator was wooing his daughter-in-law when this law was being written.
You can’t marry them anyway, because to do so would be bigamy. It would need to be expressed as “son’s ex-wife” (or “son’s widow”), and “ex-husband’s father”, if that’s what you meant.
But the law in the link does specify ‘grandfather’s wife’ and all sorts of other marriages.
My slow computer’s Googling does make it seem as though this is a loophole, but perhaps the consanguinous relationships are covered by incest laws.
If you read the lists, they’re full of things that would imply bigamy, such as “grandson’s wife”. I assume it’s supposed to mean “grandson’s ex-wife” and “dead grandson’s widow”.
But your son’s wife is not a blood relation to you, and other closer blood relatives, such as “brother” are expressly forbidden - I think these are the MA incest laws. Nope, knowing the Mass. legislature, I’m convinced someone expressly pulled this from the bill back whenever it was written because he was putting the moves on his daughter-in-law.
I was responding to the OP’s question - consanguineous relationships, like mother and daughter, would be covered by incest laws; that link can’t be the entirety of laws about incest, since it does happen outside of marriage too.
If non-consanguineous relationships maybe aren’t covered because it’s a loophole that nobody particularly wants to close; I mean, marrying a step-daughter that you’ve brought up would be really really weird, but marrying a step-sibling that you only met as an adult? Maybe a bit weird, but not creepy or an excuse for abuse.
For the moment between seeing the thread title and hovering the mouse over it, I was desperately hoping this would be referring to a daughter’s presiding over the ceremony as a pastor/rabbi/whatever.
No such luck.
OTOH, when would this ever happen? Most mothers & daughters can’t stand to spend more than a three-day weekend in each others’ presence (and many have a hard time of it getting through that much).
I was just relieved when I opened the thread and found no “Need Answer Fast”!
I keep wondering whether it’s legal in Massachusetts to marry your widow’s sister.
Only if zombies can get married in MA.
But what if you became a zombie after you were married? Would that automatically make your wife a widow or would she have a apply for a divorce on the grounds that you were trying to eat her brains?
BTW, I know a woman that is married to her ex-husband’s son.
Massachusetts law on incest states:
So, the incest law refers back to the degrees of consanguinity in the marriage law.
Is it possible to have a widow and still be alive due to having been declared legally dead due to long term disappearance or something similar?
I don’t know about marrying her, but
You Can’t Chop Your Momma Up in Massachusetts
even if you’re tired of her cuisine
http://www.guntheranderson.com/v/data/lizziebo.htm
http://lizzieandrewborden.com/Archive0602/LB/ArchiveLBChop.htm