GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 167 



frudelf is a lover. With such evidence as this before 

 us, there can, I think, be no doubt that the primitive 

 value of fri is love in the sexual sense ; and, further, 

 that love as a bond between friends is the outcome of 

 this sexual love. In participle form we have, besides 

 the Gothic frijonds already cited : O.N. friantr, friends ; 

 later fraendi, confidant, relative, friend; O.S. friund, 

 relative, friend ; O.H.G. vriunt and vrunt, relative, male 

 lover, spouse, friend, but also serf and vassal ; Dutch 

 vriend, Friesian friond smdfriuene; O.S., 0. Swedish, 

 and O.H.G. variations of friuntscaf are rendered by 

 relationship, friendship, intimacy, and unfriuntscaf is 

 all that is hostile to the friantscafida. 



Now the historical evolution of the word is certainly 

 sexual lover, relative, friend, retainer, serf. We have, 

 in fact, precisely the same succession of ideas as in Mwo. 

 Grimm asserts that in the older languages a distinction 

 is made between mag and vriunt, the kinsman and the 

 friend, but he cites nobody earlier than Walther von 

 der Vogelweide ; and the notion of relative and kinsman 

 attaches to vriunt or friend in all Teutonic dialects, 

 of which the separation occurred ages before Walther's 

 day. Thus, in Norse, fraendi is especially the kinsman 

 as opposed to ven, the friend, in modern sense. In the 

 Nibelungenlied we find friunde occur as the persons who 

 may be kissed, e.g. the kin. 1 In old M.L.G. law-books 

 vrunt is used frequently for relative, and vruntelink for 

 one of the kin, corresponding to A.S. frundeling, 



1 The limitation of the kiss of women to the blood kin is of special signifi- 

 cance, when we note how the words for sexual intimacy and kissing pass into 

 each other, e.g. Goihicfrijdns, kiss, is here to the point. 



