Some historians claim that, in the early days of heathenry, capture was the only method used by young men for securing their brides and the supply of consorts depended upon the strength of the male, rather than the existence of “the tender passion.”[6] But the pictures of violence obtaining in these ancient days of heathenry are so obscured by the mists of the past and such a large field is left for the construction of ingenious theories, surrounded by romances of connubial bliss, resulting from this early custom of primitive society, that notwithstanding the general popularity of the theory of “marriage by capture,” some of the most eminent authorities are inclined to deny that such a custom ever existed at all.[7] Some writers maintain that the rights of the individual were never more clearly defined in marriage, than by primitive man, and that this is in accord with the common tendency of the male, to attribute a religious meaning to the ordinary intercourse with woman.[8] The Biblical theory of the custom, dates from the command to our first parents, in Genesis: “Be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth.”[9] In the beginning, we find that from the rib, which the Lord had taken from Adam, he made a woman “_and he brought her unto the man_.”[10] From Christian testimony, we have the evidence of the first book of Moses, upon the antiquity of this institution, for when Shechem, the son of Hamor, after defiling Dinah, the daughter of Leah, longed for her, in marriage, his father went to Jacob and his sons and communed with them, saying: “The soul of my son Shechem longeth for your daughter; I pray you give her him to wife. And make ye marriages with us, and give your daughters unto us and take our daughters unto you.”[11] So according to the Bible story, we find that the institution of marriage obtained seventeen centuries before Christ and these old patriarchs were plighting the troth of their son and daughter and talking of dowries and marriage portions, much as the parents of the twentieth century youth now arrange such matters. There has always been three principal forms of marriage, from the earliest historical times, monogamy, or the marriage of one man to one woman at a time, polygamy, or the marriage of one man to several women at the same time, and polyandry, or the marriage of one woman to two or more husbands at the same time.[12] Since the days of our first parents, according to the Bible story, monogamy has been the institution best suited to the progress of society and the proper evolution of the human race, for the most progressive nations of the world’s history have embraced monogamy as a rule of social conduct.