Chez Chesler

The newspaper reporting of Commonwealth vs. Rahim was particularly bad. The case is fairly straightforward. Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 207, section 1, lists the relatives that a man may not marry. Chapter 272, section 17, prohibits marriage and sexual intercourse (and as of the closing of a loophole a couple of years ago, all sorts of non-genital sexual acts) between "Persons within degrees of consanguinity within which marriages are prohibited". The majority opinion gave meaning to the word "consanguinity" in C. 272 § 17 as limiting the entire list from C. 207 § 1 referenced to only that subset which are consanguinity (blood) as distinguished from those which are affinity (by marriage.) The dissent didn't. In some states affinal incest is punished, in other states they are not. The Model Penal Code does not. Woody Allen engaged in it. The Model Penal Code supports the majority opinion, and the majority also used it to conclude that relationships by adoption are to be treated as relationships by blood, and the majority throws in adoption. The Massachusetts adoption statute, C. 210 § 6 has too many exceptions and exceptions to exceptions for me to follow. Here I disagree with the majority opinion: just as the legislature could have said "consanguinity or affinity" if they'd wanted to, or left off the modifier, they could have said "consanguinity, affinity, or adoption", as they've said elsewhere. Both sides reject eugenics. The dissent tries to find legislative intent. There was much hand-wringing about the exploitive nature of the particular relationship, but that's already covered by the other violations with which the defendant is charged. The Herald wouldn't name the defendant or the case, because that could lead to identifying the victim. But the Globe named names. The Herald story quoted out of context

``In such cases, there may develop a sexual relationship that is neither illicit or exploitive, as, for example, when a grown man marries his stepmother, who may be his own age, after his father's death.''

While that is true in the commentaries to the Model Penal Code, as quoted by the majority opinion, that particular marriage would be prohibited in Massachusetts. Chapter 207 § 3 provides that "The prohibition of the two preceding sections shall continue notwithstanding the dissolution, by death or divorce, of the marriage by which the affinity was created". And what happened to my posting to ne.politics yesterday in which I expressed these thoughts?