The priests were not to make themselves unclean by coming into contact with dead bodies, for they had responsibilities towards the whole community. The exception to this was the death of a close relative.
The cutting of your body was a common feature of many pagan religions. Priests were not to indulge in this practice. Nor were they to profane the name of the Lord. The priests were dedicated to God, their lives did not belong to themselves, for they had a higher calling. Now all believers are priests, so we must all live our lives realising that we cannot just please ourselves about how we live. We belong to God, we are not our own, so we must live for Him. The priest was to be careful about who he married.
The high priest had an even stricter code to follow than a priest. He was not allowed to touch even the body of his own mother or father if they died.
Those who were had physical defects were not allowed to serve as priests. Now our immediate reaction is to get all upset here about equality rights and the like. We need to understand that this passage is not about the worth of people, it is about the need for a perfect priest, pointing ultimately towards Jesus. At the same time we also need to realise that no one had a right to be a priest, it is down purely to the choice of God. The basic fault of all human understanding is to put ourselves in the place of God, we only truly understand things when we give God His rightful place.
There were also rules about sacrifices not having defects, this again points towards the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
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