One very important fact going to show whence proceeded the reforms of Lycurgus is that the mandates of the oracle were supreme. The oracles controlled the rulers, but women always controlled or interpreted the oracles. The celebrated Rhetra of Lycurgus, in which unlimited authority is given to the people to reject or adopt the proposals of the king, was given according to the direction of the Pythian Apollo, whose mandates were interpreted by women. In an earlier age the chiefs of the gentes were elected by all the people, and they held their office by virtue of their relationship to the leader of the gens, who was a woman. That the honour due to women was still recognized in Sparta is shown in the following from Plutarch in relation to the election of senators. The person who had received the loudest acclamations was declared duly elected, whereupon he was crowned with a garland, and a number of young men followed him about to extol his virtues. The women sang his praises and blessed his life and conduct. Two portions were set before him, one of which he carried to the gates of the public hall, where the women were in waiting to receive him. To the one for whom he had the greatest esteem he presented the portion, saying: “That which I received as a mark of honour I give to you.” The woman thus honoured “was conducted home with great applause by the rest of the women.”[213] [213] Plutarch’s _Lycurgus_. Spartan men were forbidden to marry foreign women, hence, contrary to the customs of surrounding nations at this early period, wives as well as husbands were native-born. All were Spartans, which fact probably accounts in a measure for the exalted position occupied by women. Both in Sparta and in Crete the form of marriage was by capture; thus, although in the time of Lycurgus the Spartan men and women both belonged to the same stock, it is plain that originally they were of different tribes. Of capture as practised in Sparta, Müller says that it was clearly an ancient national custom, founded on the idea that “the young woman could not surrender her freedom and virgin purity, unless compelled by the violence of the stronger sex.”[214] According to Plutarch, after the arrangements for the wedding had been completed, the bridegroom rushed in, seized the bride from among her assembled friends, and bore her away. [214] _History and Antiquity of the Doric Race_, book iv., chap. iv.