Page:Next-of-kin Marriages in Old Iran.djvu/119

which the Hindus first commanded and afterwards condemned, union with a half-sister by a different mother must have been recognized as allowable, at any rate by dispensation from the chief in David's time. This is evident from the story of Amnon and Tamar; and we may gather that the practice had once been common. In the Polynesian Islands there are tribes of which all the women are common to all the men of other particular tribes. When the children, as commonly, take their classification from the mother, it is obvious that consanguineous unions must be frequent. They seem even to be regarded in some cases as connected with religious needs, since at certain festivals all restraints on licentiousness are cast aside even amongst males and females of the same family who do not ordinarily even speak to each other. There seems to be everywhere tendency to connect sexual anomalies with the mysteries of religion, and with persons of extraordinary national importance. The account given of the parentage of Moses, if taken literally, makes him the offspring of a nephew and an aunt. Beings who are so highly exalted, are supposed to be quite beyond the ordinary standard.

Both these sources of legends may have been in operation in ancient Persia, as it was known, and but superficially known, to the Greeks. There