Page:Next-of-kin Marriages in Old Iran.djvu/106

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IN OLD IRÂN.
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of fragments in its present condition, still there is no lack of references which show us that the custom of contracting marriages amongst the Irânians in the age of the Avesta, cannot at all be reconciled with any theory of incestuous wedlock. The expressions moshu-jaidhyamna, "courting or solicitation," dirict or indirect, for the hand of a maiden, and vadh or vaz, "to convey or take home the wife" (ducere puellam in matrimonium), presuppose that intermarriage between different families or citizens was not unknown to the Avesta nation. The idea of conveying a bride to the house of the bridegroom, which is implied in the root vadh (signifying in the Zend-Avestâ "to marry"), implicity contradicts the notion of several European scholars that the Avestâ people were fond of marrying in their own family only, and with their nearest relations. Besides, the moral position of the wife in the Irânian house, was in no way inferior to that of an English materfamilias. Similar as she was in rank to her husband, her chastity was an ornament to the house, and her

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