A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. 1 of 3Howard, George Elliott
History
A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. 1 of 3
Howard, George Elliott
Families; Marriage -- History
2. In the second grade fall peoples among whom it is the custom,
after the capture is effected, to compound with the guardian by
paying a penalty for the abduction or a price for the woman:
including Slavs, Lithuanians, modern Greeks of the Ionian Isles,
the Ossetes of the Caucasus, the Germans, and certain non-Aryan
peoples.
3. 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.
_Cf._ the similar classification of POST,
_Familienrecht_, 139, 140.
A very few illustrations of these curious practices, selected from
the mass of material available, must here suffice.[504] Sometimes
there is a pretended abduction of the bride by the bridegroom. Among
the Eskimo of Cape York, for instance, the marriage is arranged
amicably by the parents in the infancy of the parties. Nevertheless
the wedding ceremony simulates an abduction. The bride "is obliged
by the inexorable law of custom to free herself, if possible, by
kicking and screaming with might and main, until she is safely
landed in the hut of her future lord, when she gives up the combat
very cheerfully, and takes possession of her new abode."[505]
In the Ungava District the "sanction of the parents is sometimes
obtained by favor or else bought by making certain presents of
skins, furs, and other valuables." If no parents are living, the
brothers and sisters must be favorable to the union. "When all
obstacles are removed and only the girl refuses, it is not long
before she disappears mysteriously, to remain out for two or three
nights with her best female friend, who thoroughly sympathizes with
her. They return, and before long she is abducted by her lover,
and they remain away until she proves to be thoroughly subjected
to his will."[506] In Greenland a similar practice is found.[507]
It appears in some Siouan tribes.[508] Among the Canadian Indians,
after a kind of civil marriage is solemnized before the tribal
chief, "the groom turns around, makes an obeisance, takes his wife
upon his back, and carries her to his tent amid the acclamations of
the spectators."[509] Sometimes the affair takes on a more earnest
character. Among the Bedouins of Sinai the bridegroom seizes the
woman whom he has legally purchased, drags her into her father's
tent, lifts her violently struggling upon his camel, holds her
fast while he bears her away, and finally pulls her forcibly into
his house, though her powerful resistance may be the occasion
of serious wounds.[510] Especially interesting is the form which
symbolical abduction assumes among the Kamtchadales. There the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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