i8 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



bride by night. And he is most solicitous to keep 

 these interviews from the knowledge of other people. 

 For the youth of the village and among them the 

 brothers and kinsmen of the bride lie in wait for him 

 and beat him without pity as he comes away from the 

 house. Customs such as these are in fact found 

 among almost all the tribes of the Caucasus. 1 



There are substantial reasons, one of which has 

 been mentioned in the last chapter, for believing that 

 in prehistoric Greece kinship was counted only through 

 the mother. According to Plutarch (whose testi- 

 mony is important though we may reject the cause he 

 assigns) the relations between husband and wife in 

 Sparta were at first secret ; the husband's visits were 

 nocturnal only, and were conducted with precautions 

 against discovery by the rest of the family. Nor was 

 this secrecy of short duration. Sometimes it lasted 

 for years and children had been born before husband 

 and wife had an interview by daylight. 2 A similar 

 cause to that alleged by Plutarch is still given by the 

 Albanian population of Turkey for the same custom. 

 " A romantic reserve," we are told, "surrounds the 

 interviews between the young couple, who, especially if 

 the husband be one of a numerous family and have no 

 private apartments, can only meet in secret until they 

 have children of their own. The mountaineers cherish 

 this custom which, they contend,, by surrounding with 

 a halo of romance and mystery the relations of the 

 young couple tends to keep their love for each other 

 fresh and warm." 3 In both cases doubtless the cause 

 assigned is a subsequent invention to account for a 



1 Kovalevsky, LAnthrop. iv. 272 ; Darinsky, op. cit. 188 sqq., 204. 



2 Plut. Lycurgus. 3 Garnett, Worn. ii. 257. 



