1 66 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE 



time of freedom for the woman, and it is remarkably 

 significant that the modern name for it should be that 

 for the free intercourse of the old social system. It 

 shows that comradeship freedom and friendship were 

 ideas evolved from a sex-relationship, which nowadays 

 would be universally condemned as antisocial. 



The ultimate root of freien is frt, Sanskrit pri, to 

 embrace, love in the sexual sense, enjoy. In Sanskrit 

 Pritis is the wife of the god of love ; prijas is the loved 

 one, the bridegroom, the spouse, and prijd, the loved 

 woman ; prijdja is to be intimate. Gothic frijon is 

 to love, frijapva signifies sexual love, and frijons kiss ; 

 frijdnds and frijondia stand for male and female lovers, 

 friends. A.S. frigjan is to love, to embrace, and fredd 

 is love. O.N. frt is spouse, wooei,fria to love. Danish 

 frie is woo, marry. Dutch vrijen, M.H.G-. vrien, both 

 to woo. 1 Ij.Qt.frijte stands for wooing, and thence we 

 might pass to a variety of Teutonic words deduced from 

 freien, still extant, and denoting courtship, wooing, or 

 matrimony. 



We may further note Bohemian pritel, a male friend 

 or lover; O.N. fritfitt, Landsmaal fridla, O.H.G. 

 friudil, lover, bridegroom, spouse ; friedila, a loved 

 woman; 2 and M.H.G. milchvriedel, a beardless lover. 

 Danish frille stands for mistress or concubine, Friesian 



1 I suspect Gothic fraiv, seed (as in the parable of the sower), and race or 

 offspring, O.E. fri for family or offspring, and English fry, Swedish fro for 

 spawn, are related to the root fri, as hiwo, spouse, and hiwa, family, hive, to 

 the root hi. 



2 It is most noteworthy that in 0. H. G. friudalin is used of a concubine, 

 and friedila is used for virago, for a woman quae virile implet officium, runs the 

 gloss ; strange but weighty evidence of the importance of women under the old 

 free sexual system, and of the impression they formed on the men of the new 

 civilisation. 



