TABOO AND GENETICS 139 



were called " the carpeting of the grave." (54.) 

 In Arabia, as in many other countries, while a 

 widow may escape death, she is very often 

 forced into the class of vagabonds and depend- 

 ents. One of the most telling appeals made by 

 missionaries is the condition of child widows 

 in countries in which the unfortunates cannot 

 be killed, but where the almost universal stigma 

 of shame is attached to second marriages. A 

 remarkable exception to this, when in ancient 

 Greece the dying husband sometimes bequeathed 

 his widow to a male friend, emphasized the idea 

 of woman as property. 



Although the taboos which are based on the 

 idea of ownership are somewhat aside from the 

 main theme of our discussion, they nevertheless 

 reinforce the other taboos of the seclusion and 

 segregation of woman as unclean. Moreover, 

 as will be shown in a later chapter, the property 

 idea has certain imphcations which are impor- 

 tant for the proper understanding of the status 

 of woman and the attitude toward her at the 

 present time. 



In the face of the primitive aversion to 

 woman as the source of contamination through 

 sympathetic magic, or as the seat of some mystic 

 force, whether of good or evil, it may well be 

 asked how man ever dared let his sexual longings 

 overcome his fears and risk the dangers of so 

 intimate a relationship. Only by some reUgious 



