Why can’t you marry your brother?

Tiernan, Isabelle, and Jack spent Saturday night with us. Isabelle and Jack came over in the afternoon and shortly after they arrived we all went to clean the church building. On the way back, out of the blue, Isabelle asked, “Why can’t you marry your brother?”

Isabelle is 6 years old. I have no idea why she would be thinking about this. But it’s a good question, so I turned to face her and launched into an explanation. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but it was something like this: “The government has learned that there can be problems when a brother and sister marry, so they made a law saying you couldn’t do it. This law is also based on God’s law that says brothers and sisters shouldn’t marry.” Something like that. When I finished, she look either confused or not satisfied, so I asked her what was wrong. She said, “I still don’t understand.”

Before I could say anything, Tiernan said, “She doesn’t understand ‘government’.” (Great, my answer was so clear that I have birthed another question!) So Tiernan set about explaining what government is. He did a pretty good job, but Isabelle still didn’t understand. Now it was my turn.

I told her that the government is a group of people who have been voted on/chosen to make laws that keep us safe. She seemed satisfied with that, so I returned to my earlier explanation about how brothers marrying sisters can cause problems and that God has also said this was not a good thing. So they made a law saying you can’t do this.

“Why isn’t it safe? What can happen?” Mary and I then tried to explain about children and genes: how Grandmama has genes and I have genes, and when we have children we share our genes with them; and weaknesses in genes; and how when two people with the same weak genes have children, then there is a greater chance for problems. (In all this, I might have whispered something to the effect that I donated the good genes and Grandmama the weak genes, and then admitted that I am the only one who will wear jeans with holes in them. After all, we're talking to children and I can’t help but have fun with them! We all laughed.)

But Isabelle wasn’t finished. “Has it always been that way?” So we told her about the creation of Adam and Eve, and the fall, and its' effects on us: “In the beginning it was OK to marry your brother. In fact, you had no other choice! But after a while, when there were enough people, God told us not to do that anymore. We are all related, we all go back to Adam and Eve, but we don’t have to marry our brother anymore . . .” This seemed to satisfy her and besides, by this time we were nearing Charandas Mexican Grill and Cantina, where we planned to eat supper, so everyone's attention was now focused on food.

I love this! I know we don’t have children with us all day and therefore we are not bombarded with questions from dawn to dusk, but I love their questions! I love being asked these things and having the opportunity to answer them. I want them to be able to ask away – how else will they know if they don’t ask? And what big questions they ask! What a challenge it is to try to answer such big questions in a way that a 6 year can understand! I know, they can't take it all in at once, but “line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little.”

Supper was great too!