Page:Next-of-kin Marriages in Old Iran.djvu/90

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IN OLD IRÂN.
75

the first passage and in the thirteenth that the English translator seems to have discovered a definite reference to next-of-kin marriages. I may, therefore, be allowed to put forward in this place my own interpretation of these paras., to show that it is not next-of-kin marriages that they in any way recommend, but only moral or social union in a tribe, race, family, or near relations; and that the 13th passage explicitly condemns incestuous marriages as unlawful practices indulged in by lewd people. My version of the passages is as follows:—

"Khvêtûk-dasih means a gift of communion. Thus honour is obtained, and the union of power acquired by adherents, relatives, or fellow-creatures through prayers to the Holy Self-existent One. In the treatise on human relationship, it is the (moral) union between the sexes in preparation for, and connection to, the time of the resurrection. In order that this union might proceed more completely for ever, it should subsist between the innumerable kindred tribes, between

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