indicate the nature of true coyness better than any definitions. There
are no "coy looks," no "feigning" in the actions of an Australian girl
about to be married to a man who is old enough to be her grandfather.
The "cold disdain" is real, not assumed, and there is no "dissemblance
of feminine affection."
CAPTURING WOMEN
The same reasoning applies to the customs attending wife-capturing in
general, which has prevailed in all parts of the world and still
prevails in some regions. To take one or two instances of a hundred
that might be cited from books of travel in all parts of the world:
Columbus relates that the Caribs made the capture of women the chief
object of their expeditions. The California Indians worked up their
warlike spirit by chanting a song the substance of which was, "let us
go and carry off girls" (Waitz, IV., 242). Savages everywhere have
looked upon women as legitimate spoils of war, desirable as concubines
and drudges. Now even primitive women are attached to their homes and
relatives, and it is needless to say their resistance to the enemy who
has just slain their father and brothers and is about to carry them
off to slavery, is genuine, and has no more trace of coyness in it
than the actions of an American girl who resists the efforts of
unknown kidnappers to drag her from her home.
But besides real capture of women there has existed, and still exists
in many countries, what is known as sham-capture--a custom which has
puzzled anthropologists sorely. Herbert Spencer illustrates it
(_P.S._, I., § 288) by citing Crantz, who says, concerning the
Eskimos, that when a damsel is asked in marriage, she
"directly falls into the greatest apparent
consternation, and runs out of doors tearing her hair;
for single women always affect the utmost bashfulness
and aversion to any proposal of marriage, lest they
should lose their reputation for modesty."
Spencer also quotes Burckhardt, who describes how the bride among
Sinai Arabs defends herself with stones, even though she does not
dislike the lover; "for according to custom, the more she struggles,
bites, kicks, cries, and strikes, the more she is applauded ever after
by her own companions." During the procession to the husband's camp
"decency obliges her to cry and sob most bitterly." Among the
Araucanians of Chili, according to Smith (215) "it is a point of honor
with the bride to resist and struggle, however willing she may be."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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