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Question: Where did Cain get his wife? (Genesis 4:17)

1. There two possibilities:
     a. That he married a sister. Gen. 5:4: Adam and Eve had other
sons and daughters.
     b. That he married the offspring of one of his brothers or
sisters.
          1) v. 14 seems to indicate that by the time Cain killed
Able that other offspring had been born. (If not, then he was just
concerned about the time when others would be born on down the
road.)

2. One option is sometimes proposed that is not possible: that God
created other people besides Adam and Eve, and thus that Cain
married a woman who was not of Adam and Eve's family.
     a. The Bible makes it plain that Eve was the mother of all
living (Gen. 3:20).
     b. Adam is referred to as the "first man." (1 Cor. 15:45). "If
Adam was the first man, and Eve was the mother of all, then it is
clear that there were "other peoples" for Cain to marry. The
population of the Earth came directly through the lineage of Adam
and Eve" (Apol.Press.IV.12). Cf. Acts 17:26: "And He has made from
one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the
earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the
boundaries of their habitation."

3. Some object that this would be incestuous. 
     a. Of necessity, when the earth began to be populated, close-
kin marriages were required. A quick glance at Gen. 4-6 shows that
the people multiplied quickly. So the time was realized very soon
that marriages of close kin were not necessary.
     b. Secondly, "no harmful genetic traits had emerged at this
point which could have been expressed in the children of closely
related partners. However, after many generations, and especially
after the Flood, solar and cosmic radiation, chemical and viral
mutagens and replication errors, led to the multiplication of
genetic disorders." (ibid)
     c. By the time of the law of Moses, Marriages of close kin
were forbidden (Lev. 18).
















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