hom we obtain the story.[77]
Turning next to the daughter-in-law, supposing that the difference
between "daughter" and "daughter-in-law" (query stepdaughter) in the
story variants is a vital difference, and not an accidental
difference, there is curious and important evidence from India. The
following custom prevails among certain classes of Sudras,
particularly the Vella-lahs in Koimbator: "A father marries a grown-up
girl eighteen or twenty years old to his son, a boy of seven or eight,
after which he publicly lives with his daughter-in-law, until the
youth attains his majority, when his wife is made over to him,
generally with half a dozen children. These children are taught to
address him as their father. In several cases this woman becomes the
common wife of the father and son. She pays every respect due to her
wedded husband, and takes great care of him from the time of her
marriage. The son, in his turn, hastens to celebrate the marriage of
his acquired son, with the usual pomps, ceremonies, and tumasha, and
keeps the bride for himself as his father had done."[78] But even
further than this, ancient Hindu law allowed the father, who had no
prospect of having legitimate sons, to "appoint" or nominate a
daughter who should bear a son to himself, and not to her own
husband.[79] Sir Henry Maine gives the formula for this remarkable
appointment, and then goes on to say that some customs akin to the
Hindu usage of appointing a daughter appear to have been very widely
diffused over the ancient world, and traces of them are found far down
in history.[80]

What we have before us, therefore, to guide us in the view we take of
the story incident of a father marrying his own daughter, may be
summarised as follows:--

1. The father is not related to his daughter, and hence examples occur
of fathers marrying daughters.

2. The custom of marrying a daughter-in-law.

3. The custom of nominating a daughter to bear a son.

From any one of these facts of primitive life we arrive at the central
incident in the story of Catskin: the father could marry his daughter
without specially shocking the society of the primitive world, simply
because, according to primitive ideas, father and daughter, as we call
her, were not related.

We now arrive at the second incident--the running away of Catskin.
This again is a very early form of marriage custom. Women of primitive
times often objected to the forced marriages, and they expressed