230 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE 



appears to leave the terms for mother-in-law unac- 

 counted for, although in several cases they appear to 

 be as primitive, if not more primitive, than the male 

 terms ; for example, Welsh chwegr and Cornish hwegr. 

 Anthropologically, also, we should expect the mother of 

 either mate to appear before the father, and this view 

 is favoured by the Welsh chwegrwn, which suggests, as 

 Whitley Stokes has pointed out, svekr-unos as the base 

 form. Here the unos would be an affix corresponding 

 to that in sobr-inus or uter-inus, and it would be a 

 meaning for the root svekr that must be sought. 1 Now 

 this form corresponds closely to the Teutonic form, for 

 brother-in-law, and, with much hesitation, I am inclined 

 to hold that possibly the words for parents-in-law are 

 deduced from the term now used in Teutonic lands for 

 brother-in-law. There is much to be said against this 

 view. In the first place, there is no word for brother- 

 in-law connected with either Latin socerus or Greek 

 e/cvpo? : in the next place, Sanskrit actually forms a 

 derivative, svakurjas, for brother-in-law ; 2 and, in the 

 last place, the Celtic languages seem to use for mother- 

 in-law a term most closely corresponding to that for 

 brother-in-law in the Teutonic languages. But against 

 these weighty objections must be set the following : 

 (i.) The Teutonic schwager is far more extended in 



1 Latin socrus for socerus appears to have been originally of either gender, and 

 suggests the same idea. Against this view, namely, that the brother-in-laAV 

 is primitively a person of more weight than the parents-in-law may be urged 

 the formation of complimentary words for father by marriage, as in the case of 

 French beaupere, and Teutonic stiuffater, stepfather, pater honoris causa, as 

 Schade neatly expresses it. Note also the use in Scotland and Northumberland 

 of goodfather, goodmother, goodsister, etc. , for relatives-in-law. 



2 This might possibly be compared with the origin of konigin, from 

 honing, and ultimately from Tcone. 



