140 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE 



and barn (Danish 60r, the womb, and bvrn, children 1 ), 

 but there are other ideas in mac which we must now 

 follow up. Besides denoting blood relationship, it 

 denotes sexual relationship. Thus in O.F. mec stands 

 for verlobung, meker for wooer, mec-breffor contract of 

 marriage, metrika for verlobte, which latter may better 

 be compared with Sanskrit mdtrka for mother, nurse, and 

 womb. In A.S. maca is glossed par, socius, consors, 

 conjux, and in O.N. maki is glossed par, aequalis, con- 

 jux. Swedish gives us make, a mate or equal, maka, a 

 spouse, mate ; O.D. maet, and Eng. mate, all closely 

 related to A.S. maege, and even English maid. In 

 other words, terms which denote collateral kinship are 

 identified with sexual comradeship. They are, in fact, 

 excellently glossed ^by the Latin consors, which, I take 

 it, was itself a term for the group consort. These 

 are evidently fossils of the most suggestive kind, for 

 they carry us back to kin-marriage, at least cousin- 

 marriage, if not brother -sister marriage. The A.S. 

 maeghaemed, the heirath of the mdc, was probably in 

 olden times no term of reproach. Endogamy was part 

 of the maeg or might, the strength of the family. The 

 bond of kin was the source of power and strength. The 

 whole mdc would have been as wroth as many a Tyrol- 

 ese village still would be at a maiden who exhibited 

 exogamous tendencies. She would have been doing what, 

 in that stage of civilisation, was antisocial or immoral. 2 



1 Compare Friesian ben and bern for child, berninghe for blood relationship, 

 and benenaburch, the bairn's home, as a name for the womb. 



2 The following extract from an evening paper shows the same primitive 

 social feeling in Hungary. The outburst occurred at Borsad, a village near 

 Kaschau : 



