fanatical on the matter of exogamy. Langsdorff says the same of the Kadiaks, who unite indiscriminately, brothers with sisters, and parents with children.[1] It is well known, besides, that in the matter of sexual unions no race has fewer prejudices than the Esquimaux. The Coucous of Chili, and the Caribs also, willingly married at the same time a mother and daughter. With the Karens, too, of Tenasserim, marriages between brother and sister, or father and daughter, are frequent enough, even in our own day.[2]
But these unions, though incestuous for us, have not been practised amongst savages and inferior races only. According to Strabo, the ancient Irish married, without distinction, their mothers and sisters.[3]
We are told by Justin and Tertullian[4] that the Parthians and Persians married their own mothers without scruple. In ancient Persia, religion went so far even as to sanctify the union of a son with his mother.[5] Priscus relates that these marriages were also permitted among the Tartars and Scythians, and it is reported, too, that Attila married his daughter Esca.[6]
Whether from a survival of ancient morals, or the care to preserve purity of race, conjugal unions between brother and sister were authorised, or even prescribed, in various countries, for the royal families. The kings of ancient Egypt were obliged to marry their sisters, and Cleopatra thus became the wife of her brother Ptolemy Dionysius. The Incas of Peru were subject to a similar law; and at Siam also, when the traveller La Loubère visited it, the king had married his sister.[7] But I shall have to return to the subject of marriage between relations in treating of the endogamic régime which has been, or is, in force among many peoples.
These incestuous marriages astonish us, and certain of them are even revolting to our ideas, as, for example, the union of the mother with the son. Another custom
