CHAPTER XVII

MARRIAGE BY CAPTURE AND MARRIAGE BY PURCHASE

THE practice of capturing wives prevails in various parts of the world, and traces of it are met with in the marriage ceremonies of several peoples, indicating that it occurred much more frequently in past ages.

Speaking of the inhabitants of Unimak, Coxe says that they invaded the other Aleutian islands, and carried off women-the chief object of their incursions.1 Among the Ahts, a man occasionally steals a wife from the women of his own tribe; whilst the Bonaks of California usually take women in battle from other tribes, and the Macas Indians of Ecuador acquire wives by purchase, if the woman belongs to the same tribe, but otherwise by force.3 All the Carib tribes used to capture women from different peoples and tribes, so that the men and women nowhere spoke the same tongue; 4 and v. Martius states that, in Brazil, "some tribes habitually steal their neighbours' daughters." 5

Among the Mosquito Indians, after the wedding is all arranged and the presents paid, the bridegroom seizes his bride and carries her off, followed by her female relatives, who pretend to try to rescue her. The Araucanians considered the carrying off of the bride by pretended violence an

2

Sproat, loc. cit. p. 98.

1 Coxe, loc. cit. p. 257. 3 Schoolcraft, loc. cit. vol. iv. p. 224. Jour. Anthr. Inst.,' vol. iii. p. 30. 4 Waitz, loc. cit. vol. iii. p. 355. McLennan, 'Studies,' p. 34.

5

v. Martius, in 'Jour. Roy. Geo. Soc., vol. ii. p. 197.

Bancroft, loc. cit. vol. i. p. 733.

essential prerequisite to the nuptials, and, according to Mr. E. R. Smith, it is even "a point of honour with the bride. to resist and struggle, however willing she may be." The Uaupés "have no particular ceremony at their marriages, except that of always carrying away the girl by force, or making a show of doing so, even when she and her parents are quite willing." Almost the same is said of the Fuegians, though among them the capture is sometimes more than a ceremony.3

Andersson remarks that, among the Bushmans, woman is only too often belli teterrima causa. Speaking of the Bechuanas, Mr. Conder says, "As regards wedding ceremonies, there is one of casting an arrow into the hut by the bridegroom, which is worthy of notice as symbolic."5 Among the Wakamba, marriage is an affair of purchase, but the bridegroom "must then carry off the bride by force or stratagem." The Wa-taïta and Wa-chaga of Eastern Equatorial Africa have also a marriage ceremony of capture; and the like is the case with the Inland Negroes mentioned by Lord Kames,8 and the Abyssinians. Among the tribes of Eastern Central Africa described by Mr. Macdonald, marriage by capture occurs not as a symbol only.10

9

11

According to a common belief, the Australian method of obtaining wives is capture in its most brutal form. But contrary to Mr. Howitt, 12 Mr. Curr informs us that only on rare occasions is a wife captured from another tribe, and carried

1 Alcedo-Thompson, Dictionary of America and the West Indies,' vol. i. p. 416. Smith, The Araucanians,' p. 215.

2 Wallace, 'Travels on the Amazon,' p. 497. v. Martius, loc. cit. vol. i.

p. 600.

3 King and Fitzroy, loc. cit. vol. ii. p. 182. Hyades, in 'Bull. Soc. d'Anthr.,' ser. iii. vol. x. p. 334.

+ Andersson, 'The Okavango River,' p. 143.

5 Conder, in 'Jour. Anthr. Inst.,' vol. xvi. p. 83.

6 Krapf, loc. cit. p. 354.

7 Thomson, loc. cit. p. 51.

Johnston, loc. cit. pp. 431, 436, et seq.

8 Kames, 'Sketches of the History of Man,' vol. i. p. 449. Parkyns, loc. cit. vol. ii. pp. 55, et seq.

10 Macdonald,' Africana,' vol. i. p. 133.

11 Cf. Hodgson, 'Reminiscences of Australia,' p. 243; Angas, 'Savage Life,' vol. ii. pp. 225, et seq.

12 Fison and Howitt, loc. cit. p. 343.

off.1 The possession of a stolen woman would lead to constant attacks, hence the tribes set themselves very generally against the practice.2 Even elopements, according to Mr. Mathew, are now usually more fictitious than real; but there are strong reasons for believing that formerly, when the continent was only partially occupied, elopements from within the tribe frequently occurred.*

In Tasmania the capture of women for wives from hostile and alien tribes was generally prevalent. Among the Maoris, the ancient and most general way of obtaining a wife was for the man to get together a party of his friends and carry off the woman by force, apparent or actual. A similar practice occurs on the larger islands of the Fiji Group, in Samoa,8 Tukopia, New Guinea,10 and extremely frequently in the Indian Archipelago, and among the wild tribes of India.12 Among the Arabs,13 Tartars,1 and other peoples of Central Asia, as also in European Russia,15 traces of capture occur in

11

1 Curr, loc. cit. vol. i. p. 108. Cf. Taplin, loc. cit. p. 10; Palmer, in 'Jour. Anthr. Inst.,' vol. xiii. p. 301. 2 Curr, vol. i. p. 108.

3 Mathew, in Jour. Roy. Soc. N. S. Wales,' vol. xxiii. p. 407.

4 Curr, vol. i. p. 108. For marriage by capture among the Australians, cf. also Montgomery, loc. cit. vol. ii. pp. 153, et seq. ; Oldfield, in 'Trans. Ethn. Soc.,' N. S. vol. iii. p. 250; Sturt, loc. cit. vol. ii. p. 283; WaitzGerland, loc. cit. vol. vi. p. 773.

5 Waitz-Gerland, vol. vi. p. 813.

Taylor, loc. cit. p. 336.

7 Williams and Calvert, loc. cit. p. 149. 8 Wilkes, loc. cit. vol. ii. p. 138. 9 Waitz-Gerland, vol. v. pt. ii. p. 191.

10 Bink, in 'Bull. Soc. d'Anthr.,' ser. iii. vol. xi. p. 396.

11 Wilken, in 'Bijdragen,' &c., ser. v. vol. i. p. 183. Riedel, loc. cit. pp. 69, 133, 415.

12 Bodo, Hos, Mundas, Kúrmis (Dalton, loc. cit. pp. 86, 192, 194, 319), Bhils, Káttis, Oráons (Rowney, loc. cit. pp. 37, 46, 81), Gonds (Forsyth, loc. cit. pp. 149, et seq.), Chittagong Hill tribes (Lewin, loc. cit. p. 92), Savaras (Fawcett, in 'Jour. Anthr. Soc. Bombay,' vol. i. p. 235).

13 Burckhardt, loc. cit. pp. 61, 62, 150, 153. According to Professor Robertson Smith (loc. cit. p. 72), instances of marriage by capture might be accumulated to an indefinite extent from Arabian history and tradition. At the time of Mohammed the practice was universal.

14 Huc, loc. cit. vol. i. p. 185.

15 Kirghiz (Atkinson, 'Travels in the Regions of the Upper and Lower Amoor,' pp. 250, et seq.), Chulims (Georgi, loc. cit. p. 231), Mordvins (Mainoff, Mordvankansan häätapoja ').

C C

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the marriage ceremony, whilst the Tangutans, Samoyedes,2 Votyaks, &c., are still in the habit of stealing wives, or elope with their sweethearts, if the bridegroom cannot afford to pay the fixed purchase-sum. Among the Laplanders, Esthonians, and Finns, marriage by capture occurred in former days, and in some parts of Finland symbolical traces of it in the marriage ceremony have been found in modern times.s

The same practice prevailed among the peoples of the Aryan race. According to the 'Laws of Manu,' one of the eight legal forms of the marriage ceremony was the Râkshasa rite, i.e., "the forcible abduction of a maiden from her home, while she cries out and weeps, after her kinsmen have been slain or wounded, and their houses broken open." This rite was permitted for the Kshatriyas by the sacred tradition. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, marriage by capture was at one time customary throughout ancient Greece; 10 and, as Plutarch informs us, it was retained by the Spartans as an important symbol in the marriage ceremony. Even now, according to Sakellarios, capture of wives occasionally occurs in Greece.12 Among the Romans, the bride fled to the lap of her mother, and was carried off by force by the bridegroom and his friends.13 In the historical age this was a ceremony only, but at an earlier time the capture seems to have been a reality. "Les premiers Romains," says M. Ortolan, “d'après leurs traditions héroïques, ont été obligés de recourir à la sur

1 Prejevalsky, 'Mongolia,' vol. ii. p. 121. 2 Castrén, loc. cit. vol. ii. p. 168.

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3 Buch, loc. cit. p. 62.

4 Teptyars, Tartars of Crimea (Vámbéry, ‘Das Türkenvolk,' pp. 523, 541), Ostyaks (Castrén, vol. ii. p. 57), Cheremises, Voguls (Georgi, loc. cit. pp. 56, 67). v. Düben, loc. cit. pp. 200, 310. 6 Willigerod, 'Geschichte Ehstlands,' p. 9. v. Schroeder, loc. cit. p. 19. 7'Kanteletar,' book iii. song 22. Topelius, 'De modo matrimonia jungendi apud Fennos quondam vigente,' pp. 28-30. Castrén, in 'Litterära Soiréer,' 1849, p. 13.

8 Tidningar utgifne af et Sällskap i Âbo,' 1778, no. 148. Heikel, in 'Helsingfors Dagblad,' 1881, nos. 66, 91. Ahlqvist, 'Kulturwörter,' p. 204. 9 The Laws of Manu,' book iii. vv. 33, 26.

10 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 'Paμaïên ȧpxardoyía,' book ii. ch. xxx. § 5. 11 Plutarch, AUкoupyos,' ch. xv. 13 Rossbach, loc. cit. p. 329.

12 v. Zmigrodzki, loc. cit. p. 250.

prise et à la force pour enlever leurs premières femmes." 1 The ancient Teutons frequently captured women for wives.2 Speaking of the Scandinavian nations, Olaus Magnus says that they were continually at war with one another, "propter raptas virgines aut arripiendas."3 Among the Welsh, on the morning of the wedding-day, the bridegroom, accompanied by his friends on horseback, carried off the bride. The Slavs in early times, according to Nestor, practised marriage by capture; and in the marriage ceremonies of the Russians and other Slavonian nations, reminiscences of this custom still survive. Indeed, among the South Slavonians, capture de facto was in full force no longer ago than the beginning of the present century. According to Olaus Magnus, it prevailed in Muscovy, Lithuania, and Livonia; and, according to Seignior de Gaya, the symbol of it occurred in his time in Poland, Prussia, and Samogithia."

The list of peoples among whom marriage by capture occurs, either as a reality or as a symbol, might easily be en- < larged.1o There are peoples, however, who seem to have nothing of the kind. As regards the Chinese, Mr. Jamieson says, " Of the capture of wives there is, as far as I am aware, historically no trace, nor is the form to be found among any of the ceremonies of marriage with which I am acquainted." 11 Moreover,

1 Ortolan, 'Histoire de la Législation romaine,' p. 81.

2 Dargun, loc. cit. pp. 111-140. Cf. Grimm, loc. cit. p. 440; Nordström, loc. cit. vol. ii. p. 12; Weinhold, 'Deutsche Frauen,' vol. i. pp. 308-310. 3 Olaus Magnus, 'Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus,' p. 328. 4 Kames, loc. cit. vol. i. p. 450. Cf. Lewis, loc. cit. p. 197; Rhys, in 'Trans. Intern. Folk-Lore Congress, 1891,' p. 289.

5 Macieiowski, loc. cit. vol. ii. p. 189.

6 Ibid., vol. ii. p. 190. 'Globus,' vol. v. p. 317. Kulischer, 'Intercommunale Ehe durch Raub und Kauf,' in 'Zeitschr. f. Ethnol.,' vol. x. pp. 206-208. Kovalevsky, in 'Folk-Lore,' vol. i. pp. 476, et seq. Wolkov in 'L'Anthropologie,' vol. iii. p. 578.

7 Krauss, loc. cit. ch. xiv.

8 Olaus Magnus, pp. 481, et seq.

de Gaya, 'Marriage Ceremonies,' p. 45.

10 Cf. the works of McLennan, Tylor, Lubbock, Post, and Dargun, and the essays of Kulischer (in 'Zeitschr. f. Ethnol.,' vol. x.) and Kohler (Studien über Frauengemeinschaft, Frauenraub und Frauenkauf,' in 'Zeitschr. f. vgl. Rechtswiss.,' vol. v. pp. 334-368).

11 Jamieson, in 'The China Review,' vol. x. p. 95.