Joseph Henrich

And as a woman, you would be taken care of and your children would still be part of that kin group.

So there was all these social norms to kind of take care of things.

If both parents were killed, then the children would automatically go to other members of the family where they'd be raised and taken care of and whatnot.

Yeah, this is happening all throughout Europe as missionaries are moving from the Roman Empire and from Rome out to the Celtic tribes and other Anglo-Saxon tribes, other Germanic tribes, to try to spread Christianity to these places.

And when this monk named Augustine arrives in Kent, he begins to convert the king and his wife, who was already Christian.

She married him.

She was a Frankish princess.

So Augustine queried the Pope to find out what kinds of things he should be conveying as he faces these challenges from the local people in Kent.

And so one question he asked the Pope is, how distant must a relative be for a Christian marriage to be permissible?

So can I marry second cousins?

Can I marry third cousins?

Another question was, can a man marry his stepmother or his brother's wife?

And then can two brothers marry two sisters?

And can a man receive communion after a sex dream?

Yeah, so the Pope, to the first question, he said, definitely can't marry first cousins.

During this period in history, the Church was definitely banning first cousins.

They would go on to ban all the way out to six cousins, but at this point, you could marry your second cousins.

And you cannot marry your stepmother.

So it's not about genetic relatedness.

It's about these family relationships that are created.