332 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



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 Le- 

 viticus, 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 endoga- 

 mous. 



"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 them- 

 selves superior, and refuse to intermarry with a people whom 

 they regard as inferior. In the one case the endogamy is volun- 

 tary, 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 considera- 

 tion 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 ger- 

 man ; for, if descent were in the male line, the blood-tie derived 

 from the common father ought to have had the greater weight. 



