Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 63:1 (Spring 2001)
Article: Revising The Westminster Confession The Case Of Near-Kin Marriage
Author: Barry G. Waugh

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WTJ 63:1 (Spring 2001) p. 65

Revising The Westminster Confession
The Case Of Near-Kin Marriage

Barry G. Waugha 1

The commissioners to the Westminster Assembly addressed marriages of affinity in chapter twenty-four of the Westminster Confession of Faith with the following: “The man may not marry any of his wife’s kindred nearer in blood than he may of his own, nor the woman of her husband’s kindred nearer in blood than of her own.” The Presbyterian Church in the American Colonies adopted the Westminster Confession in 1729 through the Adopting Act. As the Presbyterian Church grew, through the colonial period and well into the nineteenth century, several cases involving marriages within the degrees (i.e. steps in direct line of descent) prohibited by the affinity sentence were adjudicated in the General Assembly. At the present time the affinity sentence has been removed from some denominational versions of the Westminster Confession.2 The purpose of this article is to present some of the historical groundwork for the near-kin marriage issue in England, the ensuing inclusion of the affinity sentence in the Confession by the Westminster Assembly, and then follow some of the ecclesiastical adjudication through American Presbyterianism leading to its eventual removal by the northern and southern denominations, and finally, to offer some concluding observations.

I. The Historical Context

Near-kin marriage holds a position of infamy in England’s regal and ecclesiastical history. Following the death of Prince Arthur, Henry VII arranged a marriage between Catherine of Aragon, Arthur’s widow, and young Prince Henry. The proposed union was within the prohibited degrees since Henry

WTJ 63:1 (Spring 2001) p. 66

would be marrying his deceased brother’s widow. Pope Julius granted a bull allowing Henry and Catherine to marry in June of 1509. As the years passed, it became clear to Henry that Catherine was not going to bear the desired male heir, so he sought a way to end the marriage. Henry argued that his marriage was childless because he was cursed with the barrenness promised in Lev 20:21 to those who marry their deceased brother’s wife (this supposed “barrenness” despite the birth of Mary in 1516). Henry sought an annulment on the basis of what he contested was an inadequate bull from Julius II. After several years of conflict, the matter was brought to an end in 1533 when Henry renounced papal authority and Thomas Cranmer provided the annulment Rome refused to grant. Henry married Anne Boleyn secretly in Jan...

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