Mr. Taylor says that the ancient and most general way of obtaining a wife among the New Zealanders was “for the gentleman to summon his friends, and make a regular _taua_, or fight, to carry off the lady by force, and ofttimes with great violence.”[278] A fight also took place if, when a girl was given in marriage, the friends of another man thought he had a greater right to her, or if she eloped with some one contrary to her father’s or brother’s wish. Even if all were agreeable, “it was still customary for the bridegroom to go with a party, and appear to take her away by force, her friends yielding her up after a feigned struggle; a few days afterwards, the parents of the lady, with all her relatives, came upon the bridegroom for his pretended abduction; after much speaking and apparent anger, it ended with his making a handsome present of fine mats, &c., and giving an abundant feast.”[279] In this case the affair ended in the same manner as the African marriage already referred to, and the idea was no doubt the same in both—the giving of compensation to the parents and relations of the woman for the loss sustained by them through her offspring being removed from the family group; probably the widespread custom of pretended forcible marriage was originally connected with the rights of the woman’s relations, although sometimes the capture is due to the desire to obtain for nothing what could otherwise be acquired only by a purchase fee. What those rights are may be ascertained from the information given us by Mr. Morgan as to the privileges and obligations associated with the membership of a gens. Among them is an obligation not to marry in the gens, mutual rights of inheritance of the property of deceased members, and reciprocal obligations of help, defence, and redress of injuries. “The functions and attributes of the gens,” says Morgan, “gave vitality as well as individuality to the organisation, and protected the personal rights of its members,”[280] who, as being connected by the ties of blood relationship, may be regarded as forming an enlarged family group, or rather a fraternal association based on kinship.