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Pausanias (vii. 2. 6) tells the same tale shortly. H. here seems to be incorporating in his argument a piece of very early custom. Among some savage tribes, e.g. the Caribs in North America, the wife neither eats with the husband nor calls him by his name (cf. Frazer, iv. 116). The myth of Cupid and Psyche preserves in a curious form this primitive separation of husband and wife. There may have been some strange survival of this at Miletus, but it can hardly have been as absolute as H. states.

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