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Rudhardt examines the Greek characterization of incest. There was no word for incest in classical Greek: complex expressions were used for it, usually connoting its being either "illegal," "impious," or "contrary to the religious order," but these same terms were used to describe, for example, two lovers having non-incestuous sexual relations in a sanctuary. Only in the Christian era did specific terms for incest arise, and it is only in the Byzantine ninth century that a word for incest in the generic sense is found. Rudhardt examines Greek literature and mythology for accounts of the various unions that would today be termed incestuous. In Greek culture it was customary for families to intermarry; it was an endogamy, however, that prohibited marriages between ascendants and descendants. Step-siblings might marry. The practice with respect to other types of sibling relationships (same parents, or same mother) varied, but for the most part marriage of siblings was regarded as bizarre and Asiatic. For the Greeks, marital partners were to be neither too far apart in relatedness nor too close. But the gods were allowed more possibilties, apparently because the generative activity of the gods transcended the norms necessary for the functioning of human society. Parent-child incest was forbidden to mankind, though in some cases there was subsequent deification. Three products of incestuous unions, Persephone, Adonis, and Dionysus, were able to move between the human and the divine, or between life and death. This infraction of limits may well have to do with the infractions which characterized their births.