[546] Of course, SPENCER'S reply to McLennan, already mentioned, is most important; and his argument has not been overthrown: _Principles of Sociology_, I, 652-56. _Cf._ WESTERMARCK, _Human Marriage_, 388, who favors Spencer's view; and GROSSE, _Die Formen der Familie_, 107, 108, who accepts coyness as a partial explanation, though he believes that the symbol of capture may also be due in some cases to the honor of having wives taken in war, while frequently it may represent in a realistic way the release of the woman from paternal authority and her subjection to the husband's power. HELLWALD, _Die mensch. Familie_, 287 ff., rejects Spencer's explanation, regarding the forms of ceremonial rape as survivals of real capture, marking the transition to wife-purchase and the paternal system; and LIPPERT, _Kulturgeschichte_, II, 86 ff., 92 ff., holds a similar position. [547] STARCKE, _Primitive Family_, 218, 262. He refers especially to the joint or communal family--the "alpha and the omega" of the community. But his explanation can hardly be accepted as sufficient in all cases. [548] _Cf._ LETOURNEAU, _L'évolution du mariage_, 117, 128, who holds that the ceremonial of capture especially symbolizes the subjection of woman "achetée ou cédée par les parents; il sanctionnait les droits, presque toujours excessifs, que l'époux acquérait sur l'épousée." [549] _Ibid._, 117. Compare the suggestions of Abercromby, that "marriage _with_ capture--by which he understands capture of a bride, associated with some other form of marriage, such as that by purchase--may be regarded rather as a result of the innate universal desire to display courage, than as a survival of a still older practice of taking women captive in time of war."--WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 388, citing ABERCROMBY'S "Marriage Customs of the Mordvins," _Folk Lore_, I, 454. _Cf._ LETOURNEAU, _op. cit._, 128. "Connubial and formal capture," according to Crawley, "are very widely spread, but are never survivals of real capture." "In fact, formal capture, far from being itself a survival, either of connubial or of actual hostile capture, is the ceremonial mode of which connubial capture is the non-ceremonial; each is a living reality, the one being material and the other ideal."[550] [550] _Mystic Rose_, 368, 370. In harmony with his theory of sexual taboo, he declares that it is "not the tribe from which the bride is abducted, nor, primarily, her family and kindred, but her sex."