Among civilized peoples, on the other hand, relations by affinity are frequently regarded in the same light as relations by blood. In Yucatan, a man was not allowed to marry his sister-in-law.[1850] According to the Chinese Code, marriage with a deceased brother’s widow is punished with strangulation, whilst marriage with a deceased wife’s sister is exceedingly common, and has always been regarded as particularly honourable.[1851] In Japan, intercourse with a father’s or a grandfather’s concubine, or a son’s or grandson’s wife, involves the same punishment as intercourse with a paternal aunt or a sister.[1852] The ‘Institutes of Vishnu’ declare that “sexual connection with one’s mother, or daughter, or daughter-in-law, are crimes in the highest degree,” there being no other way to atone for these crimes than to proceed into the flames.[1853] According to the laws of Moses[1854] and Mohammed[1855] and the Roman Law[1856] marriage was prohibited with mother-in-law, step-mother, daughter-in-law, and step-daughter—according to Mohammed, however, so far as the step-daughter was concerned, only if she were under the guardianship of her mother’s husband. Moses also forbade marriage with the sister of a wife who was still living,[1857] and with a brother’s wife, if she were widowed and had children by the brother; and Mohammed prohibited marriage with two sisters at the same time. * * * * * From very early times thinkers have tried to account for the prohibition of marriage between near kin. Some, says Mr. Huth, ascribe them to a fear lest relationship may become too involved; others to a fear lest affection may become concentrated within too narrow a circle; because marriage would take place too early; because people would be induced to marry each other in order that property might be kept in the family; because such marriages are prohibited by “God’s law”; because they outrage “natural modesty”; and, only in modern times, because they are supposed to prove injurious to the offspring.[1858] Comparative ethnography has changed the aspect of the question. The horror of incest has been found to prevail among peoples who neither know anything of “God’s law,” nor possess property to keep in the family. New hypotheses have therefore been suggested more worthy of consideration, as being founded on a much firmer basis of facts.