Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 22, 1911.djvu/322

 286 On the Alleged Evidence for

or next of kin having to marry the eTriKXijpo? if she were not of the same mother as himself, but nothing to indicate that, e.^., Argadeis might not marry Argadeis or Pamphyli with Pamphyli. We simply do not know how or why the ^vXal came into being. Within the phratries it is noteworthy that great stress was laid on the descent in the female line of candidates for membership, and that the ^vXerai called themselves ojuoyaXaKreg ("milk-brothers"), whatever exactly that term may mean ; for they can hardly have claimed all to be children or foster-children of the same woman.^*^ Compare also the elaborate account of the ancestry on the distaff side of the persons mentioned in the Coan inscrip- tion, (Paton and Hicks, 368) ; the prohibition of marriage between o/uofxi'jrpioi but not between oixoTrarrpiOL ; and Lykaon s appeal ($95) A^'/ M^ Krelv exe) oi^x o/uLoydcrrpiog E/CTO/009 eifjLi (" Slay me not, since I am not from the same womb as Hector "). The reason for all these is to be found, not in mother-right, but (a) in Greek notions of morality, which, especially among the Dorians, did not insist on a husband's fidelity. Probably the tribal authorities often had to deal with an attempt to palm off a favourite illegitimate child as being e^ aa-rrjg eyyvtjrt]?, ("born of a citizeness in lawful wedlock "). The father's word could be taken readily enough, as he would scarcely represent another man's child as his own ; but it was only natural that searching enquiries should be made as to the mother. (d) In the fact that children of mixed marriages, e.g. between an Athenian and a woman of Megara, while in our sense they might be legitimate, could not be citizens. (c) In the world-wide idea that the closest of all relation- ships is that between children of the same mother, if only because one can be absolutely certain of it. No socio- logical arrangements can do away with such a belief

^^ Dr. Farnell suggests, and I think rightly, that the word {ofiofiriTpioL) meant originally the legitimate children of a particular man, as distinct from his bastards, who would still be 6/xo7rdrptot with each other and with the yvrja-ioL