Daisy's family

Kriton Kyrimis kyrimis at cti.gr
Fri Aug 24 15:24:23 CEST 2001


STEVEN:

> Wow, really?  
>  Not in the USA. this would be two unrelated by blood people marrying, and
> would be considered perfectly acceptable, and indeed some would consider it
> cute and even praiseworthy. No one would be offended or find it at all
> shocking.

My guess is that many Greeks are not even aware of this restriction. I
certainly wasn't until a few month's ago, when I overheard an aunt
saying to someone that siblings cannot marry siblings unless they do
it at the same time. At that time, I thought that this was some kind
of superstition, until I happened to read an article on relationship by
marriage in the encyclopedia, where I discovered that the law makes no
distinction whatsoever between blood relationship and relationship by
marriage, including the prohibition for someone to marry the sibling
of their sibling's spouse, as it is equivalent to marrying their
own sibling. [All those who are confused by this politically correct,
gender-neutral terminology, raise your hands...] My aunt's comments were
probably a loophole in the law!

One of the things the priest says in the Greek Orthodox marriage ceremony
is that the two [the people who are getting married] will become one
flesh. I thought that this was a euphimism for sex, but apparently the
law takes it literally!

        Kriton  (e-mail: kyrimis at cti.gr)
                (WWW:    http://dias.cti.gr/~kyrimis)
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"I do not anticipate that the laws of physics will change
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