Page:Next-of-kin Marriages in Old Iran.djvu/17

any trace of such marriage practices in our Sacred Writings. The causes of this remarkable omission may be easily traced to the manifold difficulties attending an examination of the evidence on the subject, which is met with in Western classical history and in Irânian archives. These difficulties are attributable partly to want of acquaintance with the languages of the original works; partly to the obscurities of those Avestâ and Pahlavi passages which are supposed by foreigners to refer to marriages between nearest kinsfolk; and partly to the discouragement arising from the way in which some of the best European authorities have acquiesced in accepting the accounts given by Greek historians.