Dist. 41, Art. 1, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/4/d/41/q/bon-sent-IV-d41-a1-q2
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### Question II. *Whether affinity passes over into another.*

Secondly it is asked whether affinity passes over into another. And that it does, it seems.

1. In Cause thirty-five, question three, [the canon] *Contradicimus*, and below, Pope Julius: «Let no one take to wife the widow of the kinsmen of his own wife»; but the kinsmen of the wife are affines: therefore an affine wife is rendered illegitimate for contracting [marriage], for no other reason than affinity: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, in the following chapter: «Moreover, for the wives of two kinsmen to marry one man, the one after the other, the justice of public honesty forbids».

3. Likewise, the commingling of the flesh joins [persons] as much as propagation does — which is clear: because affinity extends and descends through just as many and such degrees as those to which consanguinity is extended, namely up to the fourth degree — since therefore consanguinity passes over into another: therefore affinity also. The *minor* is clear: because, if someone is my kinsman in the first degree, he generates for me a kinsman in the second: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, every like generates its like, and «whatever things are the same as one and the same thing are the same as each other»: therefore if some wife has two husbands, and some man two wives; since these two husbands are joined to the same woman, as is clear to one who considers, and these two women to the same man: therefore all are related to each other: therefore etc.

**Contra:**
1. Where there is true affinity, it binds as much as consanguinity; but one can never contract [marriage] with the daughter of one's own brother: therefore neither with the daughter of a wife's brother, who is an affine, when the brother is dead; the contrary of which is held in the *Extra*, on Consanguinity, *Non debet reprehensibile iudicari*, where it is said that such a one can be joined to such a one.

2. Likewise, if affinity arises from affinity: then when some man knows ten women, then all those women are affines: therefore one contracting with one cannot contract with another; which is manifestly false, because then a man could contract with none.

3. Likewise, suppose that someone contracts [marriage] with another's wife, that man being dead; it is asked whether she becomes an affine to the man's kinsmen; and if *not*, then affinity does not generate affinity. But if she does *become an affine* to the kinsmen: then much more to the man himself: therefore he cannot know a woman known by another man; which is a manifest incongruity.

4. Likewise, if affinity generates affinity; since the commingling of the flesh produces unity and a degree of affinity according to the first degree, then affinity will always remain on account of the commingling, and so there will be a process to infinity in affinity; which is manifestly false: therefore also the first [is false], namely that affinity through the commingling of the flesh generates or produces affinity.

### Conclusio

> Affinity does not generate affinity according to the new law.

**Respondeo:** It must be said that the bond of affinity and [that] of consanguinity differ: for the bond of affinity is a bond *per accidens*; the bond of consanguinity is a bond *per se*; and since everything *per accidens* must necessarily be reduced to what is *per se*: hence it is that affinity necessarily presupposes consanguinity and superadds commingling, and arises from these two. Since therefore that which is *per accidens* does not have the power of multiplying and diffusing itself except through that which is a being *per se*; hence it is that the diffusion and descent of affinity is, according to *truth*, regarded only on the side of *consanguinity*, not on the side of *commingling*, as far as pertains to the nature of the bond. Hence the kinsmen of Peter's wife are affines to her up to the fourth degree, just as they are bound to the wife by consanguinity; but Peter's wife, from the fact that she marries another — since she is joined *per accidens* to Peter's kinsmen — does not on account of this generate a bond of relatedness according to *truth*; but if she does generate [one], this is only according to the justice of public honesty, in the manner by which [a bond] is contracted in betrothals. And according to this manner there were of old the *second* and *third* kind of affinity, which pertained more to the justice of public honesty than to *affinity*, as the canon proposed second expressly says, if one attends. And because it was dangerous to hold to these, therefore it was necessary to revoke the whole, except the *first kind* of affinity. And thus it must be said that, according to truth and according to the present time, affinity does not generate affinity, so that one who is an affine to someone should become an affine to that person's affine; nor [so] that one who is joined carnally with some woman should through this become an affine to her affines, but rather only to her kinsmen; nor does affinity arise from consanguinity and affinity, but only from consanguinity and the commingling of the flesh. — And the reasons adduced for this are to be granted.

**To the arguments:**

*Ad 1, 2.* To that, then, which is objected concerning those two authorities, it must be said that they have been retracted; nor do they forbid such a conjunction on account of the bond of affinity, but on account of the justice of public honesty.

*Ad 3.* To that which is objected, that the commingling of the flesh joins as much as propagation; it must be said that, if you speak *in itself* and *per se*, it is false. For a father cannot contract [marriage] with a daughter whom he has generated; but a man can contract with a woman whom he has known. Yet this has truth *per accidens*, consanguinity being presupposed; which is clear: because the wife of the man becomes as near to the man's kinsmen as he himself is; and because it is a bond *per accidens*, therefore it is not extended except according to the extension of consanguinity; and therefore it does not follow that affinity generates affinity, as consanguinity [generates] consanguinity.

*Ad 4.* To that which is objected, that like generates like; it must be said that it is true, speaking *per se*, if that by which [the offspring] is made like is present in [the parent] according to that by which it generates; whence a leper generates a leper, and one afflicted with the stone [generates] one afflicted with the stone, because there is there a corruption of the generative power. But nevertheless a maimed man does not necessarily generate a maimed one, because that defect does not regard the one generating insofar as he is generating. And because affinity *per accidens* regards someone, therefore it does not diffuse it into another, neither into the one who is propagated, nor into the one who is carnally commingled. Whence that verse is not now true:

*The married woman changes the kind, but generates a degree,*

namely of affinity; unless one wishes to draw it out and expound it according to what befits modern nearness, so that through the account of marriage the kind of affinity is contracted, and through generation the kind of consanguinity. Yet the first is the truer understanding.

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