Zoroastrian Communism

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2107982
AutoresPatricia Crone (University of Cambridge, autor de correspondencia)
Año1994
Volumen36
Número3
Páginas447-462
Fecha de publicación1994-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0010417500019198
OpenAlexW4241951805
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7
Referencias citadas11

According to Xanthus of Lydia, who wrote in the fifth century B.C., the Magi considered it right to have intercourse with their mothers, daughters, and sisters and also to hold women in common. The first half of this claim is perfectly correct: Xanthus is here referring to the Zoroastrian institution of close-kin marriage (khwēdōdāh), the existence of which is not (or no longer) in doubt. But his belief that the Magi held women in common undoubtedly rests on a misunderstanding, possibly of easy divorce laws and more probably of the institution of wife lending. In the fifth century A.D., however, we once more hear of Persians who deemed it right to have women in common; and this time the claim is less easy to brush aside. The Persians in question were heretics, not orthodox Zoroastrians or their priests; their heresy was to the effect that both land and women should be held in common, not just women (though the first attempt to implement it did apparently concern itself with women alone); and the heretics are described, not just by Greeks, let alone a single observer, but also by Syriac authors and the Persians themselves as preserved in Zoroastrian sources and the Islamic tradition

Ancient history · Aside · Greeks · Heresy · Institution · Islam · Political science · Theology · Wife · Zoroastrianism · Byzantine Studies and History · Eurasian Exchange Networks · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Philosophy