Page:Next-of-kin Marriages in Old Iran.djvu/29

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NEXT-OF-KIN MARRIAGES.

when treating of India, Ariana, Gedrosia, Parthia, Media, Persia, Babylonia, Mesopotamia and Assyria, relates that "very many or most of the inhabitants of those countries intermarry with their own mothers" (vide Adam, F.R., "Cons. in Mar.," p. 713). But can this vague statement support so grave a charge? In the absence of something definite to go upon, some well-attested instances, must we not pause before believing that the Indô-Irânians, even as individual peoples, could ever be guilty of the heinousness they are charged with?

With these preliminary remarks I address myself to my task, and lay before you what I purpose to demonstrate in the following propositions:—

  1. That the slight authority of some isolated passages gleaned from the pages of Greek and Roman literature, is wholly insufficient to support the odious charge made against the old Irânians of practising consanguineous marriages in their most objectionable forms.
  2. That no trace, hint or suggestion of such
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