Such customs show us plainly why, in so many countries, symbolic practices recalling violent capture are kept up in the ceremony of marriage. In the first place, by reason even of the dangers to which it exposed the ravisher, rape was considered a brilliant action, and pleasure was felt in simulating it. But besides and beyond all, the ceremonial of capture symbolised also the subjection of the woman sold or ceded by her parents; it sanctioned the very excessive rights that the husband acquired over the wife. As a rule, the ceremonial of capture coincides with a very great subjection of the woman, even where it is only a very distant survival. At Sparta, for example, the wife might still be lent by the husband, and it was the same in ancient Rome, where she was, according to the legal expression, _in manu_, assimilated to slaves, and where the _pater familias_ had the right of life and death over her. We are, therefore, warranted in believing that in civilised countries where conjugal legislation is still derived from the Roman law, the subordinate position assigned to woman is the last vestige of primitive marriage by capture or by rape, attenuated to a purchase, as practised in the earliest times of the Romans. FOOTNOTES: [213] _Daily Life and Origin of the Tasmanians_, p. 65. [214] Dumont d’Urville, _Hist. Univ. des Voy._, vol. xviii. p. 225.--Oldfield, _Trans. Ethn. Soc._, vol. iii. p. 250. [215] _Chambers’s Journal_, p. 22 (October 1861). [216] Collins, _English Colony in New South Wales_, p. 362. [217] G. Grey, _Travels in North-Western Australia_, vol. ii. p. 249. [218] _Chambers’s Journal_, 1864. [219] _Notices on the Indian Archipelago_, p. 90. [220] Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, vol. i. p. 174. [221] McLennan, _Primitive Marriage_, p. 321. [222] Campbell, _Hist. Univ. des Voy._, vol. xxix. p. 343. [223] Laing, _Hist. Univ. des Voy._, vol. xxviii. p. 31. [224] Fitzroy, _Voy. Beagle_, vol. ii. p. 182. [225] Fitzroy, _loc. cit._, vol. ii. p. 205. [226] McLennan, _loc. cit._, p. 48. [227] McLennan, _Primitive Marriage_, p. 71.--Lewis and Clarke, _Travels to the Source of the Missouri River_, vol. i. p. 231. [228] _Hist. Univ. des Voy._, vol. xxvii. p. 130. [229] _Code of Manu_, book iii. p. 33. [230] Numbers, ch. xxxi. ver. 7-9. [231] _Ibid._ ver. 15-18. [232] _Ibid._ ver. 40-47. [233] R. Smith, _Kinship_, etc. [234] T. Hayes, _The Open Sea at the Pole_, pp. 448, 449. [235] Egede, _History of Greenland_, p. 143. [236] Carver, _Travels_, p. 374. [237] Lafitau, _Mœurs des Sauvages Américains_, t. I^{er.} p. 576. [238] Bancroft, _Native Races_, etc., vol. ii. p. 668. [239] Kotzebue (_Deuxième Voyage_), _Hist. Univ. des Voy._, t. xvii. p. 392. [240] Beniouski, _Hist Univ. des Voy._, t. xxxi. p. 408. [241] H. de Hell, _Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian Sea_, p. 289. [242] Clarke, _Travels_, etc., vol. i. p. 433. [243] Erman, _Travels in Siberia_, vol. ii. p. 372.