238 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE 



under which such a condition would arise within even a 

 co-sexual kindred group, and from which the later idea of 

 a widow as one who has lost her spouse would naturally 

 develop itself, e.g. a woman past the child-bearing age 

 and taking no part in the tribal sex-gatherings. This 

 conception of the widow as the spouseless one seems to 

 find support in the Greek ?7/0eo? (for a-Fi6eF 09), meaning 

 a youth not yet married, a bachelor in the modern sense ; 

 rjidei] is also used for 7rap0eVo$, a virgin. In this case it 

 is not the loss, but the want or absence of a spouse, 

 which is expressed by the vid or Fi6 root. Hence there 

 appears to be no sufficient reason to associate the idea in 

 widow with more than the weight of spouseless, and such 

 a condition, as the Greek words suggest, could arise as 

 well within an endogamous group, as in an exogamous 

 patriarchal system. 



(12) Summary and Conclusion. The first general 

 conclusion that may be drawn from our discussion of the 

 Aryan terms for sex and kinship is its confirmation of 

 the anthropological principle that the sex-instinct, as 

 one of the two chief motors of primitive life, has been 

 chiefly instrumental in creating, not only terms for 

 relationship, but also terms for the chief human affec- 

 tions and desires. The standpoint of the midwife must 

 in this case be the standpoint of the interpreter, because 

 it is largely the standpoint of primitive man, the creator 

 of these terms. Their very naivete' saves them from 

 obscenity, and we cannot reject scientifically the mid- 

 wife's interpretation because it clashes with our precon- 

 ceived notions of a golden age in the past. We are 

 civilised men, our ancestors were savages, and their most 



