Copulation

The umbrella collects the levitical regulations on sexual relations: forbidden combinations within the family, and the temporary prohibition that attaches to a woman's menstrual impurity. UPDV's Leviticus 18 footnote is explicit that "to have any sex with" is its standard rendering of the underlying idioms — "to uncover nakedness," "to approach," "to lie with."

Forbidden between persons near of kin

Leviticus 18 opens with a general rule and then walks through the relations it covers: "Any man will not have any sex with anyone who is near of kin to him: I am Yahweh" (Lev 18:6). The list runs through the parents, the father's other wives, sisters by either parent and however raised, granddaughters, half-sisters by the father's wife, the father's and mother's sisters, the father's brother and his wife, the daughter-in-law, and the brother's wife: "The nakedness of your father, even the nakedness of your mother, you will not uncover... You will not have any sex with your father's wife, it is your father's nakedness... With your sister, the daughter of your father, or the daughter of your mother, whether born at home, or born abroad, you will not have any sex with them... You will not have any sex with your son's daughter, or with your daughter's daughter: for theirs is your own nakedness... You will not have any sex with your father's wife's daughter, begotten of your father, she is your sister... You will not have any sex with your father's sister... You will not have any sex with your mother's sister... You will not have any sex with your father's brother, you will not have any sex with his wife: she is your aunt. You will not have any sex with your daughter-in-law: she is your son's wife... You will not have any sex with your brother's wife" (Lev 18:7-16).

The structure is consanguinity-and-affinity together — blood relatives on both sides of the family, plus the wives bound into the family by marriage.

During menses

A second rule attaches to the woman's monthly impurity rather than to kinship. The state itself is defined first: "And if a woman has a [genital] discharge, [and] her discharge in her flesh is blood, she will be in her impurity seven days: and whoever touches her will be unclean until the evening" (Lev 15:19). The sexual prohibition follows in the holiness code: "And you will not have sex with a woman, as long as she is impure by her uncleanness" (Lev 18:19).

Cross-references

Bestiality is named under Leviticus 18 and 20 in the wider holiness code; for adultery, lasciviousness, and same-sex relations, see Adultery and Sodomy.