Attention has been called to Lubbock’s idea concerning the “rights” of the males of the group. We have seen that it is his opinion that the exclusive possession of a woman could only be legally acquired by a temporary recognition of the pre-existing communal rights, and that the account in Herodotus of the debasement of Babylonian women was cited by him as evidence to prove his position. He seems, however, to forget that this custom, which was practised in various nations, is a religious rite, and was inaugurated at a time when the adoration of the sun, as the source of all life and light, had degenerated into the most degrading phallic worship. To those who have given attention to the growth of the god-idea, the supposed cases of “expiation for marriage,” cited by Lubbock, are to be explained by the peculiar practices inaugurated under fire and passion worship at a time long subsequent to the establishment of _ba’al_ marriages. In his chapter on “The Origin of Marriage by Capture,” this writer says: That marriage by capture has not arisen from female modesty, is, I think, evident, not only because we have no reason to suppose that such a feeling prevails especially among the lower races of man; but also, firstly, because it cannot explain the mock resistance of the relatives; and, secondly, because the very question to be solved is why it became so generally the custom to win the female not by persuasion but by force.[146] [146] _Origin of Civilization_, p. 106. That female modesty may not account for marriage by capture will scarcely be disputed; it is not impossible, however, that disgust, or aversion, on the part of women, may, in a measure, serve to explain it. Sir John Lubbock should bear in mind that “choice” in the matter of pairing was an early prerogative of the female; that true affection, a character differing widely from the sex instinct developed in the male was necessary before she could be induced to accept the attentions of the male. While the women among primitive peoples abhorred strangers or foreigners, it may scarcely be said of them that they were too modest to accept them as suitors. Evidently, modesty is not the term to be employed in this connection.