Bride capture

“ The difficulty in examining the apparent survivals of marriage by capture lies in determining which are indications of the usual maiden modesty of the bride, her grief at leaving home and her dread at entering a new family, and which are signs of violence on the part of the bridegroom and his friends. ”

“ It appears, then, so far as present investigation enables us to determine, that there is not sufficient evidence for assuming that wife-capture, except in isolated cases, has generally grown into marriage by purchase. As a rule, even among the lowest races, foreign or warlike capture is an exceptional method of procuring wives; while bride-stealing at home, though the symbol may sometimes be sanctioned, is merely looked upon as illegal or even immoral; [573] and, therefore, with advancing civilization it yields to contract as the highest means of effecting a marriage. ”

“ Marriage by capture is an immediate expression of male force. Like marriage by settlement in the house of the wife, it is an expedient for obtaining a wife outside the group where marriage by purchase is not developed, or where the suitor cannot offer property for the bride. ”

“ His duty it was to take charge of the bride and hand her over to the bridegroom, a duty now performed by the bride's father, and in this now obsolete custom, I think we may find a still further proof that the management and customs of the marriage procession were founded upon the old practice of wife-capture. The best man is evidently just the bridegroom's friend, who, in the absence of the bridegroom, undertakes to protect the bride against a raid until she reaches the church, when he hands her over to his friend the bridegroom. ”

“ But the girls and women of the guard fall on the assailant with great cries and blows, tear his hair, scratch his face, and sometimes throw him. Victory often necessitates repeated assaults and many days of combat. When at last it is gained, and the bride has herself acknowledged it, the marriage is settled, and is consummated the same evening in the iourte of the bride, who is not taken to her husband’s house till the next day. [240]
The ceremonial of capture still continues in the marriages of the Kalmucks, the Tungouses, and the Turcomans, but has become less coarse. ”

“ Instead of being necessarily a relic of wife-capture, it is rather the means by which the lovers, particularly the bride, maintain the actual right to dispose of themselves in marriage. [686] Many illustrations of this fact might be presented. Among the aborigines of North and South America, where, as we have seen, wife-purchase and even wife-capture are common, woman possesses a wide liberty of choice. In arctic regions the wife sometimes runs away from the husband forced upon her and joins her lover ”

“ While the friends of the bridegroom are negotiating with the father of the bride, the bridegroom steals with his horse into the neighborhood of the house, and seeks to capture the bride. So soon as he catches her, he throws her upon his horse, and makes off with her to the woods. The men, women and children thereupon raise a great hue and cry, and seek to prevent the escape. But when the bridegroom has reached the thick of the woods, the marriage is considered consummated. ”

“ In the third grade are peoples among whom the abduction of the bride, no longer accompanied by actual violence, is a legal requirement, though preceded by consent of the guardian. Besides non-Aryan examples, here are found the Romans, ancient Greeks, Slavs, possibly the Germans.
II. Peoples among whom wife-capture exists as a survival in merely symbolical form and without legal significance. Examples among nearly all peoples in every stage of advancement. ”

“ In this case the women of the encampment throw every obstacle in the way of the bridegroom—try to trip him up, and strike him with switches; so that here we have a combination of bride-racing with that form of capture in which resistance is offered by the women of the bride's party. A man has scarcely any chance of succeeding unless the woman wishes it. In a chase witnessed by Mr. Kennan [24] the bride distanced the lover, but waited for him in the last polog. ”

“ While rightly rejecting the theory of systematic foreign wife-capture, as a general phase in the development of marriage, he holds that the symbol of rape may sometimes result from struggles for women within the tribe, or from the resistance of the father and male relatives of the bride.
[552] "Der Raub begründet die Ehe nur insofern, als er zugleich jenes Zusammenleben herbeiführt; er ist Eheschliessungsform in demselben Sinne, wie er noch nach heutigem Recht als Besitzerwerbsform bezeichnet werden kann." ”

“ In modern China, the capture of the bride is recognized as something more than a form. Should the parents of a betrothed damsel delay unconscionably to fulfil the contract, it is a recognized thing for the husband elect to carry off his bride by main force, and indeed the very threat of this proceeding generally brings the old people to a surrender. [45] The Spartan marriage has lasted in other European districts into modern centuries. In Slavonic countries, though sunk to mere ceremony, it is not forgotten. ”

“ And Dr.390 Tylor’s schedules show that there are in different parts of the world even twelve or thirteen well-marked exogamous peoples among whom this habit occurs.2318
As appears from the instances quoted, the practice of capturing wives is, in the main, a thing of the past. Among most existing uncivilized peoples a man has, in some way or other, to give compensation for his bride.2319 Marriage by capture has been succeeded by marriage by purchase.
The simplest way of purchasing a wife is no doubt to give a kinswoman in exchange for her. “The Australian male,” says Mr. ”

“ Such a wedding is called “a riding wedding,” and the race to the young couple’s new home after the marriage “running the braize, or brooze.” In rural parts, too, of the county of Durham, the bridal party is escorted to church by men armed with guns, which they fire again and again close to the ears of bride and bridesmaids, terrifying them sometimes not a little. At Guisborough, in Cleveland, I am told that these guns are fired over the heads of the newly-married couple all the way from church. ”

“ But women thus captured may in many cases have been able to escape from the husbands forced on them, and to return to their own, or some friendly neighbouring, tribe. Very frequently, however, bride-stealing seems to have taken place with the approval of the girl, there being no other way in which the match could be concluded if her parents were not willing to agree to it. ”

“ Accordingly, the "symbol of rape became such an important part of the wedding ceremonies, because it was the symbol of giving up the woman to become the exclusive possession of one man." [362] McLennan, however, criticises this view on the ground that "in almost all cases the form of capture is the symbol of a group act—of a siege, or a pitched battle, or an invasion of a house by an armed band." Seldom does it represent a capture by an individual. "On the one side are the kindred of the husband; on the other the kindred of the wife." ”

“ On the day appointed for the wedding, the young people, who have not yet seen each other, choose each of them a deputy, who exchange hands on their behalf, and thus the marriage rite is accomplished. The day is spent in merriment, and in the evening the bride is veiled, and escorted by a troop of women to the conjugal abode, where she sees her husband for the first time. ”

“ Among these human ants were several who were young and pretty, some of them joyous and excited with thoughts of the wedding, others lugubrious looking, their eyes red with weeping, thinking of the approaching parting. They were marshaled by half a dozen duennas of mature years who, from out the folds of their manto, cast around them on all sides sharp and suspicious glances. The whole troop of female friends flocked around the newly made bride, manifesting the puerile and eager curiosity which the spectacle of the supreme situations of life is apt to awaken in the breasts of the multitude. ”

“ It is not a hundred years ago since a young gentleman of this country wished to know and experience the joys of matrimony, and—to cut matters short—the much-desired day of his marriage duly came.
After much good cheer and the usual amusements, the bride was put to bed, and a short time afterwards her husband followed, and lay close to her, and without delay duly began the assault on her fortress. ”

“ Women would naturally be sought as the most valuable of the spoils of war. This would lead to polygyny. Since there can be [85] no certainty as to fatherhood where the practice of seizing the women from hostile tribes obtains, wife-capture is the means of maintaining the system of counting kinship through the women only; and the existence of that system, at some time, must be inferred wherever wife-capture or its form in the marriage ceremony is discovered.
4. Wife-capture leads directly to exogamy, or the rule of not marrying within the group of recognized kindred ”

“ As she passed into the vestry to sign the marriage register, leaning proudly upon the arm of her newly made husband, and followed by her few attending personal friends, a man who had witnessed the ceremony from behind a clustered pillar in the church, stole out into the square, his face lighted by a lurid smile, his eyes emitting the same peculiar, exultant gleam as the bride’s had done. ”

“ In the Amazon valley the bride is always carried away by violence. Among the Zulus, although a purchase price is paid for a woman, custom requires that a wife, after having been captured, shall make three attempts to return to her own home.
Of the marriage customs in ancient Sparta, Plutarch says: “In their marriages the bridegroom carried off the bride by violence.”121 In Rome we have the familiar example of the Sabine women, who were captured or carried off by force. ”

“ XII. One way of escape—which doubtless took place at a very early stage—was by the capture of women. Side by side with the customary marriages in which the husband resided in the home of the wife, without rights and subject to her clan-kindred, we find the practice of a man keeping one or more captive wives in his own home for his use and service. It will be readily seen that the special rights in the home over these owned wives (rights, moreover, that were recognised by the tribe) would come to be desired by other men. ”

“ There is no honeymoon, unless it has been a runaway match, and then the fugitives think it advisable to stay away long enough for the anger of the old folks to cool down. In the ordinary course of events the bridegroom at once takes his part in whatever hunting or fishing or planting may be going on, and the bride settles in her place in the household and garden work. ”

“ All this ceremony is intended to give time to the young man to hunt for his intended bride, and, until he has found her, they will go on with their speeches. As soon as the young man discovers the girl, he seizes her and drags her to the door, while on her part she screams and shrieks for protection. At the sound of her voice all the women turn out, armed with sticks, stones, and any other weapons which come to hand, and rush to her help. ”

“ But even supposing it to have originated in the capture of foreign women, its survival as a form of marriage would not prove exogamy to have been the law. In a tribe whose warriors had many of them wives taken from enemies, and who, as having captured their wives, were regarded as more honorably married than the rest, there would result an ambition, if not to capture a wife, still to seem to capture a wife. In every society the inferior ape the superior ”

“ When they bring in the bride for the second time, I will not look at her till they have implored me several times, when I will glance at her and bow down my head; nor will I cease doing thus, till they have made an end of parading and displaying her. Then I will order one of my slaves to fetch a purse, and, giving it to the tire-women, command them to lead her to the bride-chamber. When they leave me alone with the bride, I will not look at her or speak to her, but will sit by her with averted face, that she may say I am high of soul. ”

“ Among some barbarous nations the winning of a bride is still harsher: the bridegroom rushes into the father's house knocks the maiden down, picks up her senseless body, flings it over his shoulder, and runs for his life; he is pursued by the youth of the village, pelted with stones, sticks, &c., and has to win his wife by sheer strength and swiftness. ”

“ In consigning me to this spot, your wicked sister, who, in my former estate desired to marry me herself, in spite of my aversion for her, swore that never should I be free from her enchantment, until a beautiful young bride should come to the rescue and promise to marry me, as I am, without asking any questions. Then, and then only, I might escape, taking my bride and her attendants with me."
"But your appearance—pardon me," said poor Blondina; "it is too dreadful for anything."
"Trust me," repeated the bat; and, in desperation, Blondina murmured a promise to be his bride. ”

“ But the women would not be content if their suitors showed no roughness; and they simulate resistance by scratching, kicking and biting. Among the Bedouins of to-day, the bride is carried away forcibly by the bridegroom and his ' ' best men. ' ' The girl resists stoutly, often wounding the young men with stones. It is her full intention to marry her captor, but she must keep up the fashion of resistance. And the more she kicks, bites, and scratches, the more is she esteemed by her friends, and presumably by her husband. ”

“ And each man, as he sprang to his feet, gripp’d his sword.
While the fresh-plighted hand of the bride held her lord.
“Oh, hold me not, dearest!—you would not detain?
It is honour to go—’twere disgrace to remain.
The foe’s at the gate; we must drive him away:—
A joust is befitting a chief’s wedding-day!” ”