On Fri, 14 Oct 2005 05:19:33 UTC, pappapeach@gmail.com (David Edelman)
opined:

Dear Cousin Genners;
There has been discussions about cousin and sibling marriage. This is
a different questain, but with a family kind of marriage:
If you go back in history of, say, 100-150 years, we get the
impression that a lot of comunities were much smaller then they are
now. It is known that travel then was much slower, dangerous, and more
expensive then it is now.
Because of that combination, it has been mentioned that a young man
will travel about 50 miles, to the next village, to "find" his wife.
This is the questain:
Lets say, about two years after this first young mans goes to the
neighbore village where he "found" his wife, his younger brother goes
to the same village to also "get" a wife. This second wife happens to
be the sister of the first wife. This would then make the two
brothers, brother-in-laws: the two sisters, sister-in-laws.
Similarly, although slightly different, if the younger brother is not
the brother of the first husband, but the younger brother of the first
wife, and goes to the first village. You end up with the same result
in the end.
It would seem this should have been common, but I have never seen it.
I have only seen it once, in present San Francisco, where two sisters
are married to two brothers.
Was this common, not aloud, or what?

The major part of the explanation is about travel to other villages; I
am unclear why this is relevant: the same problem exists if the
various families are neighbors in the same village. Similarly, the
question of which was the older sibling is also not part of the
question.

The phenomenon existed (late 19th century examples in my own tree).
I'm sure it still exists. An example of another complicated case is
that of my mother's younger brother who married my former wife's elder
sister, whom he met at my wedding. If you follow the path of the
relationships thus generated (my uncle is also my brother-in-law, my
sister-in-law is also my aunt -- and so was my wife), you may be
reminded (if you are old enough) of the 1960s song "I'm My Own
Grandpa", which concerned a similar, presumably fictional, case.

--
Stan Goodman, Qiryat Tiv'on, Israel

Searching:
NEACHOWICZ/NOACHOWICZ, NEJMAN/NAJMAN, SURALSKI: >from Lomza Gubernia
ISMACH: >from Lomza Gubernia, Galicia, and Ukraina
HERTANU, ABRAMOVICI, LAUER: >from Dorohoi District, Romania
GRISARU, VATARU: >from Iasi, Dorohoi, and Mileanca, Romania

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URL is: http://www.hashkedim.com

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