خویدوده

Etymology
, borrowed from. The earlier  do not use this spelling but rather, , , etc.

Noun

 * 1)  ; close-kin marriage

Usage notes

 * Ancient sources suggest that this included parent-child and sibling marriage, but modern Zoroastrians believe it refers to marriage between first cousins. Scholarly research suggests, in some cases, we are dealing with marriages between individuals who were only legally (that is, only on paper) considered ‘husband and wife’, or ‘brother and sister’, without actually being ‘husband and wife’ or without being ‘biological siblings’. One must be careful not to mistake such cases for incest. For instance, there are cases where marriage between adopted children (each with completely different parents) is legally considered marriage between ‘brother’ and ‘sister’, and may have been referred to as xvēdōdah (although not in legal documents; xvēdōdah was probably too ambiguous to be used in legal documents).