tal love? Note the modesty of my
claim. While it is certain that both the sensual and the sentimental
sides of sexual love are stifled by the horror of incest, all that I
claim in regard to ancient and primitive races is that the sentimental
side of love was smothered by unfavorable circumstances and hindered
in growth by various obstacles which will be described later on in
this volume. Surely this is not such a reckless theory as it seemed to
some of my critics.

Like the other sentiments discussed in this chapter, the horror of
incest has been found to be absent among races in various stages of
development. Incestuous unions occurred among Chippewas and other
American Indians. Of the Peruvian Indians, Garcilasso de la Vega says
that some cohabited with their sisters, daughters, or mothers; similar
facts are recorded of some Brazilians, Polynesians, Africans, and wild
tribes of India. "Among the Annamese, according to a missionary who
has lived among them for forty years, no girl who is twelve years old
and has a brother is a virgin" (Westermarck, 292). Gypsies allow a
brother to marry a sister, while among the Veddahs of Ceylon the
marriage of a man with his younger sister is considered _the_ proper
marriage. In the Indian Archipelago and elsewhere there are tribes who
permit marriage between parents and their children. The legends of
India and Hindoo theology abound in allusions to incestuous unions,
and a nation's mythology reflects its own customs. According to Strabo
the ancient Irish married their mothers and sisters. Among the
love-stories of the ancient Greeks, as we shall see later on, there
are a surprising number the subject of which is incest, indicating
that that crime was of not infrequent occurrence. But it is especially
by royal personages that incest has been practised. In ancient Persia,
Parthia, Egypt, and other countries the kings married their own
sisters, as did the Incas of Peru, for political reasons, other women
being regarded as too low in rank to become queens; and the same
phenomenon occurs in Hawaii, Siam, Burma, Ceylon, Madagascar, etc. In
some cases incestuous unions for kings and priests are even prescribed
by religion. At the licentious festivals common among tribes in
America, Africa, India, and elsewhere, incest was one of the many
forms of bestiality indulged in; this gives it a wide prevalence.

Much ingenuity has been expended in attempts to account for the origin
of the horror