224 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE 



man, not the bloodman. He is the man whose treuwa, 

 peace, or sibbe, is not preserved by his blood-link, with 

 its sanctions of blood-feud and blood- vengeance, but by 

 an oath of peace which he has taken to the kin, so that 

 he ceases to be unsibbe. For him marriage is not a 

 right of kin, but a pact, an ehe, and he is an ehemann. 

 This name eidam for son-in-law probably arose when 

 exogamy was becoming the rule, but the woman re- 

 mained within her own kin-group, a form of marriage 

 largely illustrated by the German Marchen, and equiva- 

 lent to the beena marriage of the old Arabians. 1 The 

 same notion of sworn relationship is probably to be 

 found in the Swedish svciramoder, svcirafader, svcira- 

 dotter, etc. Here, although the ultimate root may have 

 been the same as that of Swedish svoger and German 

 schwager, there has been undoubtedly assimilation to 

 svarja, swear, owing to the conception of the son-in- 

 law as the sworn-man. It is noteworthy that eidem is 

 used in M.H.G. for either father-in-law or son-in-law ; 

 this double use was very probably much older, and 

 simply marks the sworn relationship of the two. 



From the chief Germanic root for relationship by 

 marriage no terms whatever exist for children-in-law 

 till we come to the late compounds schwiegersohn and 

 schwiegertochter. These facts must be borne in mind 

 when we come to sum up the origin of this relationship. 

 Turning to other Aryan tongues we find considerable 

 diversity of words, with very significant roots. Thus we 



1 Grimm connects eidam with a root ei, related to ju, bind (as jug in jungere) 

 and equivalent to Sanskrit jam. He would thus connect eidam directly with 

 Sanskrit gdmi for jdmi, daughter-in-law. This leaves the dental quite unex- 

 plained, the primitive notion in both may be bind ; but the bond in the German 

 word is that of the oath, and in the Sanskrit that of sex. 



