y public
opinion.[1682] As the Yakuts had no word for uterine brother and
sister but only for tribal brother and sister, the statements
about the taboo lack precision, but they care nothing for incest,
and it occurs. They laugh at the Russian horror of it. They
formerly had endogamy, and it is stated that brothers and sisters
married. Now they have exogamy between subdivisions of the
nation, but a girl's brothers never let her depart as a virgin,
lest she take away their luck.[1683] A Hudson Bay Eskimo took his
mother to wife, but public opinion forced him to discard
her.[1684] Marriages of brothers and sisters appear to have been
allowed formerly amongst the Mordvin, in central Russia. A case
is mentioned of a girl who was sent from home for a time, and on
her return given to her brother as his wife.[1685]
Langsdorff[1686] reported of the Aleuts on the island of Kodiak,
at the beginning of the nineteenth century, that parents and
children, brothers and sisters, cohabited there.

+519. Incest in civilized states.+ The ancient kings of Teneriffe, if
they could not find mates of equal rank, married their sisters to
prevent the admixture of plebeian blood.[1687] In the Egyptian mythology
Isis and Osiris were sister and brother as well as wife and husband. The
kings of ancient Egypt married their sisters and daughters. The doctrine
of royal essence was very exaggerated, and was applied with quantitative
exactitude. A princess could not be allowed to transmit any of it away
from the possessor of the throne. There is said to be evidence that
Ramses II married two of his own daughters and that Psammetik I married
his daughter. Artaxerxes married two of his daughters.[1688] The
Ptolemies adopted this practice. The family married in and in for
generations, especially brothers and sisters, although sometimes of the
half-blood. "Indicating the Ptolemies by numbers according to the order
of their succession, II married his niece and afterwards his sister; IV
his sister; VI and VII were brothers and they consecutively married the
same sister; VII also subsequently married his niece; VIII married two
of his own sisters consecutively; XII and XIII were brothers and
consecutively married their sister, the famous Cleopatra." "The line of
descent was untouched by these intermarriages, except in the two cases
of III and VIII." The close intermarriages were sterile. The line was
continued by