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of the Persian Achaemenian ciyilization it became accepted in the Hellenistic period at the courts of Greek rulers ^l. But both for the Semite and Indo-European it was always shameful and con-demnable. Incestuous relations and their penalties are distinctly mentioned in the law of Hammurabi, in the Leviticus, in the Hittite texts, etc., and it is absolutly elear that they are directed against existing against local customs and not sporadic offenses of degenerat© individuals².

The institution of mamage among the nearest relatiyes is not a necessary conseąuence of matriarchate but rather a secon-dary phenomenon resulting from the co-operation of the patriar-chal and matriarchal conception of inheritance. This does not however alter the fact that, wherever this institution appears, it constitutes an indication that we do not exclusivel}^r deal with a purely patriarchal organisation of the family.

The attitude of the Indo-Aryan law as regards incest is well known: side by side with the principle of endogamy as regards caste, exogamy is madę into a strict rule within the family. Rules regulating the degree of aliowed kiuship ³ are not uniform, but in no case do they legalise, of course, marriages between brothers and sisters, or parents and children. This fact renders the morę significant the Buddhist accounts relating that the elan of Śakyas, to which Buddha belonged, owed its origin to the marriage of king Okkaka’s sons with their own sisters. The necossary, the widowed inother could take the place of the sister as her nearest kin. Under the9e conditions there arose a family noraenclature which i9 impossible adeąuately to translate into any of exogamou9, patriarchal languages.. No wonder that Accadic translators have kept to the ori-ginal word amrna-haMuk — mother-huaband. C. W. KOnig, Mutterrecht und Thronfolge im alten Elam. Fe9t9chrift der Nationalbibliothek in Wien 1926.

¹ Cf. E. Kornemann, 1. c., p. 13.

* Cf. N. Schneider, Ehe und Familie in der Gesetzgebung der Sumerer, Babylonier, A99yrer und Hethiter. Internationale Woche fiir Religiona-Ethno-logie. V. Tagung. Luxemburg 16—22 Soptember 1929. Paria 1931, p. 206, 212. — E. Kornemann, 1. c., p. 44 ff. — Friedrich, Staatsvertr&ge des Hat-tireiches in Cbersetzungeu und Erl&uterungen, herausgegeben von F. Som-mer, IV, 1930, p. 158 ff.

³ A list of principal authorities from the Dharma-Sutraa etc. can be found in R. Schmidt’9 Beitr&ge zur indi9chen Ero tik, p. 611.