which is still actually in force." There appear to be also prohibitions applying within a narrower range to relation on the female side, and to certain kinds of affinity. Du Halde says, that "persons who are of the same family, or who bear the same name, however distant their degree of affinity may be, can- not marry together. Thus, the laws do not allow two brothers to marry two sisters, nor a widower to marry his son to the daughter of a widow whom he marries."[1]
In Siam, the seventh degree of blood-affinity is the limit within which marriage is prohibited, with the exception that the king may marry his sister, as among the Incas, the Lagide dynasty, etc., and even his daughter.[2] Among the Land Dayaks of Borneo the marriage of first cousins is said to be prohibited, and a fine of a jar (which represents a considerable value) imposed on second cousins who marry.[3] In Sumatra, Marsden says that first cousins, the children of two brothers, may not marry, while the sister's son may marry the brother's daughter, but not vice versâ.[4] In the same island, it is stated, upon the authority of Sir Stamford Raffles, that the Battas hold intermarriage in the same tribe to be a heinous crime, and that they punish the delinquents after their ordinary manner by cutting them up alive, and eating them grilled or raw with salt and red pepper. It is stated distinctly that their reason for considering such marriages as criminal is that the man and woman had ancestors in common.[5] The prohibition of marrying a relative is strongly marked among tribes of the Malay Peninsula.[6]
Among the Tatar race in Asia and Europe, similar restrictions are to be found. The Ostyaks hold it a sin for two persons of the same family name to marry, so that a man must not take a wife of his own tribe.[7] The Tunguz do not marry second cousins; the Samoieds " avoid all degrees of consanguinity in marrying to
- ↑ Davis, vol. i. p. 264. Purchas, vol. iii. pp. 367, 394. Goguet, vol. iii. p. 328. Du Halde, Descr. de la Chine; The Hague, 1736, vol. ii. p. 145. De Mailla, vol. i. p. 6.
- ↑ Bowring, vol. i. p. 185.
- ↑ St. John, vol. i. p. 198.
- ↑ Marsden, p. 228.
- ↑ Letter of Raffles to Marsden, in Dr. W. Cooke Taylor, The Nat. Hist. of Society, vol. i. pp. 122–6.
- ↑ Journ. Ind. Archip., vol. i. p. 300. Tr. Eth. Soc., vol. iii. p. 81.
- ↑ Bastian. vol. iii. p. 299.
