fully understood without them; for they describe the general custom, while the part quoted by Mr. Hodson deals only with one particular case of the custom. The words omitted by Mr. Hodson clearly imply that marriage with the daughter precedes marriage with her mother; a man marries the youngest daughter of the house, and afterwards, when his father-in-law dies, he marries his widowed mother-in-law in order to enjoy her share of the family property. This is entirely in accordance with the view which I have adopted, that among the Garos marriage with a widowed mother-in-law is a simple consequence of a previous marriage with her daughter.
When we examine the particular case of the custom reported by Mr. Teunon, we find that it does not entirely conform to the general rule laid down by Sir Edward Gait; for in it the widow, whom the man was expected to marry, was not, as Mr. Hodson has rightly pointed out, his mother-in-law, since we are told that she was "not his wife's own mother," and that she was a second wife. Apparently we are left to infer that the man had married a daughter of the first wife, that the first wife, his real mother-in-law, was dead, and that in default of her he was bound to marry the second wife, the step-mother of his own wife. Only, it seems, on this hypothesis can the particular case be found to conform to the general rule. Thus the widow whom, in this case, the man was bound to marry was not his mother-in-law but his step-mother-in-law. In referring to the case in my book[1] I overlooked the exact relationship between the parties and erroneously spoke of them as mother-in-law and son-in-law respectively, whereas I should rather have described them as step-mother-in-law and stepson-in-law. I am obliged to Mr. Hodson for indicating the mistake, and I will take care to have it corrected in future editions. But while the particular case is so far exceptional, it appears not to affect
- ↑ Folk-lore in the Old Testament, ii. 253.
