Page:Next-of-kin Marriages in Old Iran.djvu/93

it may have been composed, that we can ascribe the development of the idea of marriage relationship between cousins attached to the term Khvêtûk-dasih under the erroneous interpretation of its ambiguous paraphrase Khvish-dehêshnih, which occurs in it. Here the term implies the different degrees of union,—first, between supernatural powers and the Deity; next, between supernatural powers and mankind; then, between the first man and woman,—hence the bond of moral or social union in a tribe, race, or family. But it confines, as is expressly indicated in the Persian Ravâyats, love or marriage union among mankind only to such of the cousins as are described in the quotation abovementioned. The idea of Khrêtûk-dád, denoting an act of forming relationship between cousins, has rarely been expressed again in the subsequent Pahlavi writings, nevertheless it has been preserved in the later Persian Ravâyats by Kâmah Behreh, Kâus Kâmah, and Narimân Hôshang.

Now, regarding the passage in the earlier part