[109]
Laban says to Jacob, "These daughters are my daughters, and these
children are my children;"[110] the obligation to blood-vengeance
rests apparently on the maternal kindred;[111] Samson's Philistine
wife remained among her people;[112] and the injunction in Gen. 2:24,
"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall
cleave unto his wife," refers to the primitive Hebraic form of
marriage.[113] Where the matriarchate prevails we naturally find
no prejudice against marriage with a half-sister on the father's
side, while union with a uterine sister is incestuous. Sara was a
half-sister of Abraham on the father's side, and Tamar could have
married her half-brother Amnon,[114] though they were both children of
David; and a similar condition prevailed in Athens under the laws of
Solon.[115] Herodotus says of the Lycians:
Ask a Lycian who he is, and he will answer by giving his
own name, that of his mother, and so on in the female line.
Moreover, if a free woman marry a man who is a slave, their
children are free citizens; but if a free man marry a foreign
woman, or cohabit with a concubine, even though he be the
first person in the state, the children forfeit all rights
of citizenship.
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