Canon II.
a woman shall have married
two brothers, let her be cast out [i.e. of communion] until her
death. Nevertheless, at the hour of death she may, as an act of
mercy, be received to penance, provided she declare that she will break
the marriage, should she recover. But if the woman in such a
marriage, or the man, die, penance for the survivor shall be very
difficult.
Notes.
A woman married to two brothers shall be expelled all
her life. But if when near her death she promises that she will
loose the marriage should she recover, she shall be admitted to
penance. But if one of those coupled together die, only with
great difficulty shall penitence be allowed to the one still
living.
It will be carefully observed that this canon has no
provision for the case of a man marrying two sisters. It is the
prohibited degree of
brother’s wife, not that of wife’s sister which is in
consideration. Of course those who hold that the affinity is the
same in each case will argue from this canon by parity of reasoning, and those who do not accept that position will refuse to do so.
In the Greek text of Balsamon (Vide Beveridge, Synod.) after the first clause is added, “if she will not be persuaded to loose the marriage.”
The meaning of this canon seems to be that which
Balsamon sets forth, to wit, that if a woman at the point of death or
in extremis promises that if she gets better she will dissolve
the marriage, or make a divorce, or abstain from the sacrilegious use
of matrimony, then “she may be received to penance as an act of
mercy”; and surely she is immediately absolved from the
excommunication inflicted upon her when she was cast out and extruded
from the Church. For it is certain that according to the
discipline of the Fathers he was thought to be loosed from
excommunication whoever was admitted to penance, and it is of this that
the canon speaks; but he did not
obtain perfect reconciliation until his penance was done.
To this performance of penance this woman was to be
admitted if she got well and dissolved the marriage according to her
promise made when she was in peril of death, as the Greek commentators
note; and this too is the sense given by Isidore.