The marriage by capture, which we have now to consider, is not actually a form of marriage; it is only a manner of procuring one or more wives, whatever at the same time may be the prevailing matrimonial _régime_. If, however, we cannot dispense with the special study of marriage by capture, it is because it has been made to play a chief _rôle_ in sociology. According to some authors, it has been a universal necessity, and must have preceded exogamy in all times and places. Surely this too general theory may be contested; but it is beyond doubt that the rape of women has been widely practised all over the world, that very often it has been considered glorious, and that in many countries it has been attenuated into pacific marriage. Nothing is more natural and simple than rape among savage or barbarous tribes, who hold violence in esteem and use it largely, and who, as we have previously seen, are almost always addicted to female infanticide. But has the widely-spread custom of rape the great importance in sociological theory that has been attributed to it? This is a question to which we can only reply after having consulted the facts. Throughout Melanesia capture has been the primitive means of procuring wives, or rather slaves-of-all-work, absolutely at the discretion of the ravisher. Bonwick, indeed, tells us that in Tasmania, and consequently in Australia, capture was more often simulated only, and resulted from a previous agreement between the man and woman;[213] but the savage manner in which the rape was effected abundantly proves that amiable agreement was exceptional. The Australian who desires to carry off a woman belonging to another tribe prowls traitorously around the camp. If he happens to discover a woman without a protector he rushes on her, stuns her with a blow of his club (_douak_), seizes her by her thick hair, drags her thus into the neighbouring wood; then, when she has recovered her senses, he obliges her to follow him into the midst of his own people, and there he violates her in their presence, for she has become his property--his domestic animal.[2] The captured woman generally resigns herself without difficulty;[214] in truth, she has, generally, changed her master, but not in the least changed her condition.