E. J. Woods in his book, “The Wedding Day in All Ages and Countries,” claims that the old Hebrew expression of “taking a wife,” arose from the custom of capture, not common to the Israelites, but common to other primitive peoples. (Vol. I., p. 9.) He quotes Plutarch, as authority for the custom of the Spartans to carry off their brides by capture. (Vol. I., pp. 40, 41.) Refers to the Rape of the Sabines (vol. I., p. 52), the “Institutes” of Menu, as providing one of the forms of marriage by capture, known to the four classes of India (vol. I., p. 124). He claims that “the capture of women prevailed among the aborigines of the Dekkan and in Afghanistan.” (Vol. I., p. 137) He maintains that “In New Zealand and the Fejee and other islands of the Pacific, the custom of capture of women for wives has prevailed from the earliest times of the known history of those places.” (Vol. I., p. 191.) “The form of capture is observed in the marriages of the Kalmucks, the Nogay Tartars, the Mongols, of the Ortous, in Tartary, the Circassians and the people generally of the Caucasus.” (Vol. I., p. 210.) He claims that marriage by capture obtained in Poland, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (vol. I., p. 220), that the seizure of wives by force obtained in Ireland (vol. II., p. 50), so if this record is true, since this custom is found to obtain in these countries so late as recent historical dates, it is not unbelievable that capture was the order of the early barbarous days in our own and other countries. [7] Fison and Howitt, _op. cit._ 259; Curr, _op. cit._ I., 108; Prof. Tylor; McLennan. [8] Crawley’s “Mystic Rose,” pp. 6, 147. [9] Genesis, I., 28. [10] Genesis, II., 22. [11] XXXIV. Genesis, 8, 9. [12] Ringrose, “Marriage and Divorce Laws,” p. 10. [13] First Book of Kings. [14] Bryce, “Marriage and Divorce,” III. Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, 784, 785; Euripides, Androm., vv. 173, 180; Tacitus, Germania, c. xvi. I. [15] Ringrose “Marriage and Divorce Laws,” p. 11. Monogamy was practiced by the Greeks and Romans as far back as our records reach. Wood’s “Wedding Day in All Ages and Countries,” vol. I., p. 33. Morganatic, or “left-handed” marriages, are peculiar to Germany. They occur between men of superior and women of inferior rank and are prohibited by the Royal Marriage Law of England. Ringrose, “Marriage and Divorce Laws of the World;” Wood’s “Wedding Day in All Ages,” vol. II., p. 8. [16] Bryce, “Marriage and Divorce,” III. Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, 797; Modestinus in Dig. xxiii, 1, 2. [17] Ringrose, “Marriage and Divorce Laws,” p. 8. The Twelve Tables fixed the period of three nights, to fix a previous custom, no doubt more uncertain. Bryce, “Marriage and Divorce,” III. Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, 788. [18] _Ante idem._ [19] III. Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, p. 788. [20] Tacitus, Ann. xii, 6. [21] III. Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, 805.