Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 42.djvu/348

335 marriages with the women of other nations naturally continued. Thus, Boaz married Ruth, a Moabitess; David, the daughter of the King of Geshur (II Samuel, iii, 4), and Solomon married a number of foreign women (I Kings, xi, 1). We equally find cases of Israelite women having married foreign men. In Leviticus, xxiv, 10, we read of a woman of Israel who had a son by an Egyptian. Abigail, David's sister, married an Ishmaelite (I Chronicles, ii, 17); and the daughter of Sheshan married an Egyptian (I Chronicles, ii, 34, 35). In Judges, xii, 8, 9, we read that Ibzan had thirty sons and thirty daughters. He sent the latter abroad, and took in thirty women from abroad for his sons. All these examples show conclusively that the Israelites married foreigners, and that therefore they were not endogamous.

"When a nation adopts an endogamy of nationality, it may invariably be ascribed to one of two causes: either the nation is, or considers itself to be, superior to its neighbors, and, having become dominant in war, refuses to intermarry with those it considers inferior; or the surrounding nations consider themselves superior, and refuse to intermarry with a people whom they regard as inferior. In the one case the endogamy is voluntary, in the other it is involuntary. Now the first could not have been the case with the Israelites; they were not dominant in war, and if they considered themselves superior to their neighbors, they did not carry their exclusiveness so far as to decline to marry their women. But during the captivity it is exceedingly probable that, as a conquered people, they were despised by their conquerors, and compelled, to a great extent, to marry among themselves. In Tobit, iv, 12, 13, we find a father saying to his son, "Despise not in thy heart thy brethren, the sons and daughters of thy people, in not taking a wife of them"—a speech which seems to acknowledge that the Israelites were despised. The number of those who married foreign women, as given in Ezra, x, is exceedingly small out of a body of 42,360 males (Ezra, i, 2, 64); and it is most probable that a national endogamy was forced upon the Israelites during the captivity. Then, it seems that the priests took advantage of the opportunity, and endeavored to make it a national characteristic, alleging for this purpose that it was an old law, and that all the misfortunes of the nation were to be attributed to its violation in times past.

From this necessary digression we return now to the consideration of the evidence of female descents. Another indication of that system is the strong affection between brothers and sisters uterine, as compared with that between brothers and sisters german; for, if descent were in the male line, the blood-tie derived from the common father ought to have had the greater weight.