Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/221

Rh brother, follows as a consequence from a previous marriage with a cross-cousin, her daughter.

I have now quoted all the passages to which in Folk-lore in the Old Testament I referred in support of the conclusion which Mr. Hodson has criticized. They seem to me unanimously to confirm that conclusion, which accordingly, for the sake of readers who do not possess my book, I will here repeat unchanged:

"Thus among the Garos marriage with a mother's brother's widow appears to be a simple consequence of previous marriage with her daughter; in other words, it is the effect, not the cause of the cross-cousin marriage, and is determined by the purely economic, not to say mercenary, motive of obtaining those material advantages which are inseparably attached to the hand of the widow.

Hence a study of Garo customary law seems peculiarly fitted to explain the origin and meaning of cross-cousin marriage; for it enjoins, first, the exchange of sisters in marriage, second, the marriage of a man with his cross-cousin, the daughter of his mother's brother, and, third, marriage with the widow of the mother's brother. If I am right, these three customs are related to each other in a chain of cause and effect. The exchange of sisters in marriage produced as its natural consequence the marriage of cross-cousins; and the marriage of cross-cousins in its turn produced by a natural consequence the marriage with the mother's brother's widow. All three customs arose simply and naturally through economic motives. Men exchanged their sisters in marriage because that was the cheapest way of getting a wife; men married their cross-cousins for a similar reason; and men married their widowed mothers-in-law because that was the only way of enjoying the old ladies' property."