Page:Next-of-kin Marriages in Old Iran.djvu/61

are rarely any distinct expressions to distinguish sisters from sisters-in-law or female-cousins. It is not, therefore, too strained an interpretation to believe that what Herodotus, Ctesias and others supposed to be sisters and daughters, should have been perhaps next-cousins or relations. In the same manner, it might be surmised that a mistake would be made owing to the same name being borne by several female members of a family. Thus wife and daughter, or wife and sister, or wife and mother, having the same name, what was asserted of one might be wrongly applied to the other. Innumerable instances may be found in Parsi families where the name of the mistress of the house coincides with that of one of her daughters-in-law, nieces, &c.

But, one can scarcely infer from the particular, illustrations of classical testimony on the subject, which are met with in Herodotus, Ctesias and Agathias, and are open to many objections, that incestuous marriages were were common and legal among the old Irânians as a people, and especially