Note 15 — Chapter IV · Private Festival Occasions

In such fashion the sanctity of the marriage relation is strictly guarded, and as one would suppose, illegitimate births are unknown in Armenia. Intermarriage among relations is forbidden, and until recent years, divorce has been unknown.15 As for the taboo on speech, it is calculated not so much as an inducement to the production of offspring as to preserve harmonious relations between the various members of the patriarchal household. Even the patriarch with all his authority would find difficulty in preserving proper decorum of speech and manners in so heterogeneous a household, if every newly acquired daughter-in-law were given a free rein in the use of her tongue. As the neophyte is made to understand his position by a brutal initiation, so the young wife is kept from assuming command over the female household by the placing of a moral valuation upon the silence which alone is compatible with the essential modesty regarded as the first and chief of virtues among wives. In the household of the patriarch there is a great deal to be done in common, and unfortunately the occasion for mutual aid is not sufficient to bring about the desired coöperation. Hence singleness of command and authority is a necessary condition, not only of efficiency, but also of peace, for it can not be supposed that so many daughters-in-law would work together in harmony. It would be a mistake, therefore, to regard the customary silence as an inducement to child-bearing.