192 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE 



Weib, wife, wifman, woman, requires a good deal more 

 consideration. O.H.G. t^?,M.H.G. wif, wib, appear closely 

 related to weibon, wibon, to move about, flap, fluctuare, 

 agitari. A cognate Sanskrit root is vi to weave, plait, 

 or bind, and we find the notion again in Latin viere and 

 vibrare to shake, and in many words denoting the bent, 

 shaken, woven, or 1 plaited. In Anglo-Saxon vaefan, 

 vaifjan is to wrap up, wefan to weave ; and we have a 

 host of German and Scandinavian cognates for covering 

 up, and for veils, clothes, etc. Thus we appear to have a 

 variety of senses to choose from. We might say with 

 Wackernagel and Graff that the weib is the agitator, the 

 moving, busy one ; we might suggest with Skeat that 

 the wife is the agitated one, the trembling bride ; we 

 might consider with Deecke that the wife is the weaver ; 

 or consider with others led by the notion in nubere that 

 the wife must be the veiled or covered one. 1 Against 

 all these views many objections may be raised ; in the 

 first place, weib does not necessarily connote one who has 

 been a bride ; in the next place, it is highly probable 

 that the name arose before the Teutons had much idea 

 of clothing, still less of weaving. Nor does the complex 

 notion of the woman, as especially the busy, moving one, 

 seem likely to strike the primitive mind ; it seems much 

 more the discovery of a modern student, who found in 

 man the thinker, and in woman the active disturber of 

 his study. With Schmeller, I think, we may assert 

 that the neuter gender of weib must denote that it was 



] It seems much more probable that the term nubere either arose from the 

 symbolic covering with one blanket which is so common in the folklore of mar- 

 riage, or was used as the term ' cover ' by horse - breeders, than that it was 

 primitively due to a veiling of the bride. 



