Page:Next-of-kin Marriages in Old Iran.djvu/62

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IN OLD IRÂN.
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among the Magi. The very statement of the Greeks, that the Achæmenian monarch was supposed to be above the law of the land and of religion, indicates that his adultery or incest was not in accordance with the established institutions of his realm. Nor did the people in the time of Kôbâd I. allow such incest to pass without vehement opposition. Even if we accept the evidence of the Western historians who charge Cambyses, Artaxerxes Mnemon, Kôbâd and Terituchmes with incest, it must be noted that these few are the only instances they have been able to gather in the long period of upwards of a thousand years, and that they are insufficient to support so sweeping a generalization as that incestuous marriages were recognized by law, and commonly practised among the old Irânians. It is just as unreasonable as to ascribe the custom of marriage between brother and sister to the civilized Grecians, because we discover references to it in Cornelius Nepos, Demosthenes and Aristophanes. If the Mahâbhârata tells us that the five Pandava

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