Affinity

Affinity (Lat. affinitas), the relationship created by marriage between the husband and the blood-relations of the wife, and between the wife and the blood-relations of the husband. The relatives of the wife stand to the husband in the same degree of affinity in which they stand to the wife by blood or consanguinity, and vice versa. But between the relatives of the two parties by affinity there is no affinity. Thus, there is no affinity between the husband's brother and the wife's sister; and by our law, there is no impediment to their marriage. The question as to whether those who are related by affinity stand in all respects in the same position as regards marriage with those connected by blood, is one on which much difference of opinion at present prevails. The degrees are differently computed in the Roman and the Canon Law. Marriage between a man and the sister of his deceased wife is at present forbidden by statute in England, and, since the case of Fenton and Livingstone, it has been supposed to be forbidden in Scotland by the Act, 1567, chap. 15. An attempt is annually made in parliament to obtain an alteration of the law. It has already been altered in several of the British colonies. In the United States a man may marry the sister of his deceased wife, or a woman may marry the brother of her deceased husband. In other respects the law is substantially as in England: a person cannot by legal succession receive an inheritance from a relation by affinity. See CONSANGUINITY, DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER, MARRIAGE.