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God & the TrinityIntermediate

How many children did Adam and Eve have, and whom did their children marry?

God & the Trinity

The short answer

Adam and Eve had sons and daughters (Genesis 5:4). Since there were no other human beings, brothers and sisters had to marry. St. Augustine explains this was allowed by necessity then, though later forbidden and now abhorred.

Adam and Eve had both sons and daughters (Genesis 5:4). Because no other human beings existed, marriages between siblings were a necessity.

St. Augustine explains in The City of God (XV.16) that for the race to multiply, and with no human beings except those born of the first couple, men took their sisters as wives. This was dictated by necessity in those earliest days, and allowable then, but was later condemned by religious prohibition and is now abhorred as something no circumstance could justify.