The
Egyptian god Ammon was the spouse of his own mother, and boasted of it.
Odin, according to the Edda, was the mate of his own daughter Frigga.[2]
Morgan proceeds from the principle that, from the state of promiscuity,
soon a higher form of sexual intercourse took shape. He designates this
the consanguine family. Here the groups, that stand in sexual relation,
are separated by grades or generations, so that grandfathers and
grandmothers, within an age group, are husbands and wives. Their
children, likewise, constitute a group of common couples; likewise the
children of these, so soon as they have reached the requisite age.
Accordingly, in contrast with the sex relations of the rawest period, in
which promiscuity of sexes exists without distinction of age, now one
generation is excluded from sexual intercourse with another. Sexual
intercourse, however, exists between brothers and sisters, male and
female cousins of the first, second and third remove. All of these
together are brothers and sisters, but towards one another, they are all
husbands and wives. This family-form corresponds with the system of
consanguinity that still existed in Hawaii during the first part of the
19th Century, in name only, but no longer in fact. On the other hand,
according to the American Indian system of consanguinity, a brother and
sister can never be the father and mother of the same child--a thing,
however, permissible in the Hawaiian family system. Probably the
consanguine family was the state that, at the time of Herodotus, existed
among the Massagetae, on the subject of which he reports: "Each man
received a wife, but all were allowed to use her." And he continues: "At
any time a man desires a woman, he hangs his quiver in front of his
wagon, and cohabits, unconcerned, with her.... He at the same time
sticks his staff into the ground, a symbol of his own act....
Cohabitation is exercised in public."[3] Similar conditions Bachofen
shows have existed among the Lycians, Etruscans, Cretans, Athenians,
Lesbians and Egyptians.

According to Morgan, the consanguine family is supervened by a third and
higher form of family relationship, which he designates as the Punaluan
family. _Punalua_, "dear friend," "intimate companion."

Cunow, in his above named book, takes exception to Morgan's views that
the consanguine family, which rests on the organization of marriage
classes by generations, preceded the punaluan family as an original
organiza