Achaemenid Persian traditions regarding marriage

[P. Lilius Frugius Simius]

Greetings!

I am 2/3 into my new novel (started during Nanowrimo), Revolt!, depicting the Ionian Revolt basically from a Persian perspective.

(I'll let you know when I'm done with it, and so on, of course)

In the meantime, there's an issue I haven't been able to "fix" from my sources (still pending Briant's book, sadly, but it's on the list, of course): I am about to write about a marriage and I'm not sure it would be legit or too uncommon:

The situation: youngest brother with oldest daughter of oldest brother with (this is: the uncle and the girl (niece?)). Due to this situation, he is just 3-4 years older than she is.

Now, does anyone know if this would be forbidden or too uncommon? We know of kings marrying sisters and other family, but they were kings, after all, these are "just" Persian nobility, and I'm afraid of incest...

Help very much appreciated, thanks!

PS- edited to fix a typo in the subject line

[Arthes]

Greetings,
this may help a little, although it's from a later period...I think I read somewhere that this sort of marriage was practised amongst the earlier Persians too..
from:
[url:3q3mx11a]http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Law/family_law.htm[/url] (see for full text)
In fact, the most meritorious type of marriage, regarded as a panacea for all deadly sins except sodomy (Rivâyat î Êmêd, chap. 29), was what modern Parsis call "next of kin" union (xwêdôdah, Av. xvaêtvadaƒa-; AirWb., col. 1860; Nyberg, Manual II, p. 224), described in the Dênkard (ed. Madan, I, p. 73) as "union of father and daughter, son and mother, brother and sister" (hampaywandîh î hast pid ud duxt, ud pus ud burdâr, ud brâd ud xwah). Already in the Yasna (12.9) the righteous xvaêtvadaƒa- was praised. Consanguineous marriage, originally practiced by the nobility among many peoples, was later commonly contracted in all sections of the Iranian community, high and low. Many Persian monarchs married their sisters or daughters (Boyce, Zoroastrianism I, p. 254 n. 24, II, pp. 75-77; idem, 1979, s.v. khvâetvadatha), and the Magians were reported by Xanthus of Lydia to have cohabited with their mothers and daughters (Jackson, pp. 152-57). In the Sasanian period the priest Ardâ Wîrâz (q.v.) took all his seven sisters to wife (Ardâ Wîrâz Nâmag, chap. 2). Next-of-kin marriage among the common people is dealt with in most Middle Persian lawbooks, especially the Rivâyat î Êmêd (chaps. 22, 24, 27-30; cf. de Menasce, 1985, pp. 138-44; Shaki, 1971, pp. 335-36; Nyberg, Manual II, p. 224).
regards
Arthes

[P. Lilius Frugius Simius]

Ah, excellent page...

Thank you very much!

laters!