Abstract:
Incest is one of the controversial and popular issues undertaken by the researchers in the history of Persia prior to Islam and Zoroastrianism and there has been numerous studies in this regard. In this essay a collection of records which directly or indirectly points to this issue has been compiled from different texts. This study first deals with an etymologic discussion about the word “ khovidoudah” followed respectively by the records of this sort of marriage among Gods، and myths in Transpotamia and the ancient Persia، Greek historians reference to incest in Iran in their works، records found in Middle Zoroastrian texts، and Islamic texts. Finally cases within Shahnameh which attest to this rite are introduced.
Machine summary:
(Procos, 1387, 55) A group of researchers, while rejecting the prevalence of this ritual among a specific people and nation, consider it a custom limited to royal families; because among the kings of ancient times, examples of marriage between brother and sister, mother and son, father and daughter, or marital unions between a woman or man and their niece or nephew are seen, which is known as "royal incest.
(, 32 and 33) Agathias, who lived during the reign of Anushirvan the Just, raised the subject of "Kavad taking his daughter as a wife" for the first time and says that Kavad, the father of Anushirvan, married his own daughter - whose name was Zنبق 24; but the wonder is that neither the blessed soul of Ferdowsi in the Shahnameh refers to this subject, nor Arab historians, nor those Iranian writers who have insulted Zoroastrians and ancient Iranians, have written anything about this; Christian Orientalists, especially Professor Rawlinson 25, the translator of Herodotus' history into English, have made no mention of this; however, if we take the doubt strongly and say that Kavad has indeed committed this ugly act, we must consider it the result of the influence of Mazdakism on him; because during the reign of Kavad, a person named Mazdak appeared, claimed prophethood, and a number of the people of Iran, including Kavad, accepted his religion.
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