Page:Next-of-kin Marriages in Old Iran.djvu/22

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IN OLD IRÂN.
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They married in their own tribe, since no mésalliance could be contracted, and everybody regarded his own tribe and his own family as the most preferable one. So early as in the Avestâ the marriage of near relations is recommended (Ys. XIII. 28, Vsp. III. 8); and it is also to the present day a custom among the nomads, whose daughters very often decline the most favourable offers of marriage out of their family circle, because they think that such marriages might convey them into a town, and likewise into a different tribe. The extreme case of such marriages between relations is the marriage of brothers and sisters. According to Herodotus, Cambyses first introduced the custom of marriage between brothers and sisters; but this is probably an error. The custom certainly existed already before him. That the kings were accustomed to take in marriage only the spouses of their rank from the family of the Achæmenidæ is witnessed in two passages by Herodotus. For this reason the marriages between brothers and sisters were

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