RISE OF FATHERRIGHT 17 



of her as his wife, or to inquire after her health. 1 

 Among the Ossetes the bride is taken to her husband's 

 abode, but he himself goes to live at his foster-father's 

 or in the house of a friend. Thence he visits her 

 secretly and by night. At the end of a year or even 

 longer she is allowed to pay a visit to her parents, 

 whom she has not seen since her marriage. It is only 

 after she returns with gifts from them to her husband's 

 relatives that she is publicly recognised as his wife. But 

 no man dare caress his own children in the presence 

 of other people : he would become such an object of 

 contempt that nobody would give him his hand, and 

 any one might without being liable to punishment spit 

 in his face. 2 The Chevsurs, who are strict exogamists, 

 on the other hand leave the wife for a year at least in 

 her own family. The relations between her and her 

 husband are not recognised. They are so far secret 

 that husband and wife do not speak to one another 

 nor even look at each other in the presence of strangers, 

 until at all events the first child is born. The Chechen 

 bridegroom has a right to visit his bride between the 

 betrothal and the wedding ; but he must keep out of 

 the way of her parents. Both among the Chechens 

 and the Ingush he must always avoid his mother-in- 

 law : her glance is of evil omen. Among the Trans- 

 caucasian Tartars the bridegroom ordinarily visits the 



1 Lobel, 70; Darinsky, Zeits. vergl. Rechstw. xiv. 188; Potter, 

 135 note, citing Wake; Kovalevsky, UAnthrop. iv. 268. 



2 Rev. Hist. Rel. xlii. 459, citing Borisievitch ; Darinsky, loc. dt. 

 The Ossetes who are now in the stage of fatherright with strongly 

 developed patriarchal institutions, preserve another relic of an 

 earlier stage in the custom of a married woman to return during 

 pregnancy to her parents' house and there to be delivered (Globus, 

 Ixxxviii. 24). 



n B 



