A correspondent of the Drawer is involved in domestic perplexities. He writes:

‘I got acquainted with a young widow, who lived with her step-daughter in the same house. I married the widow; my father fell, shortly after it, in love with the step-daughter of my wife, and married her. My wife became the mother-in-law and also the daughter-in-law of my own father; my wife’s step-daughter is my step-mother, and I am the step-father of my mother-in-law. My stepmother, who is the step-daughter of my wife, has a boy: he is naturally my step-brother, because he is the son of my father and of my step-mother; but because he is the son of my wife’s step-daughter so is my wife the grandmother of the little boy, and I am the grandfather of my step-brother. My wife has also a boy: my step-mother is consequently the step-sister of my boy, and is also his grandmother, because he is the child of her step-son; and my father is the brother-in-law of my son, because he has got his step-sister for a wife. I am the brother of my own son, who is the son of my step-mother; I am the brother-in-law of my mother, my wife is the aunt of her own son, my son is the grandson of my father, and I am my own grandfather.’

— Harper’s Magazine, April 1865