GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 125 



The following are a selection of O.H.G. glosses : 

 hiiven = coire ; hifuoga = procuress ; hiwelich (M.L.G. 

 Mivelek, Dutch huivelijk) = coitus, concubitus ; kehiginnis 

 lust = delectatio carnis; Jcehigenden = coeuntes; ungehite 

 = eunuchi; gehiton ze iro tohteronis the "went in unto 

 their daughters" of the Bible; hitdt = opus gignendi ; 

 hiunka = contubernium, concubinage, or living in a hive, 

 tent, or dwelling together. All these and others denote 

 the purely sexual relationship, without a trace of the later 

 permanent marital and domestic relationship. These 

 words demonstrate, in fact, the promiscuity of the inter- 

 course out of which the family in our modern sense arose. 



Turning to another series of O.H.G. meanings we 

 find : higot, the god of sex ; Mmdchari, as a gloss to 

 Hymenaeus ; hisaz, a plot of ground, originally the 

 site of the hive or old family group ; hiberg, the hill- 

 top on which the group met for its great sex-festivals, and 

 then kehiten = conjuges ; ze gehienne = uxorem ducere ; 

 ungeluivat = innuptus ; hibar, hibarig = nubilis, reif, 

 still retained in Dutch huwbaer, and huwen in the sense 

 of Men. We find hiwo and liiwa for male and female 

 conjuges, spouses ; and tliiu hihun is used in tenth- 

 century German for the bridal folk at the marriage in 

 Canaan. Compare Lett, sewa, a wife, and Sanskrit geva, 

 intimate. Thus we see the merely sexual meaning of 

 the root extended to more permanent marriage rela- 

 tions. It is then further extended to any members of 

 the household ; hiwa, at first spouse, becomes female 

 servant, and is to be compared with A.S. wifpegn, who 

 is not only a female servant, but a person of loose habits. 

 In M.H.G. hiwe, hie is not only used for a knecht, but 



