Tylor informs us that a Scandinavian warrior generally sought to gain his bride by force, that he conceived it beneath his dignity to win her by pacific means. That the affair might appear more heroic, he waited until the object of his choice was about to wed another, and was actually on her way to the nuptial ceremony, when with his friends he would surprise the wedding cortege, seize the bride, and carry her off. It has been said of Scandinavian marriages that they were matters of deep anxiety to the friends both of the bride and groom, who, until the wedding was over, remained at home in suspense fearing an attack of the kind already mentioned. It was customary for a party of young men to station themselves at the church door, and, as soon as the ceremony was completed, to carry the news to the homes of the wedded pair. “Within a few generations the same old practice was kept up in Wales, where the bridegroom and his friends, mounted and armed as for war, carried off the bride,” and in Ireland they used even to hurl spears at the bride’s people, though at such a distance that no one was hurt.[120] [120] _Anthropology_, p. 404. In the Amazon valley the bride is always carried away by violence. Among the Zulus, although a purchase price is paid for a woman, custom requires that a wife, after having been captured, shall make three attempts to return to her own home. Of the marriage customs in ancient Sparta, Plutarch says: “In their marriages the bridegroom carried off the bride by violence.”[121] In Rome we have the familiar example of the Sabine women, who were captured or carried off by force. [121] _Lycurgus._ A notable fact in connection with the subject of capture is, that the mother of the bride, or, in case the mother is dead, the nearest female relative, is the individual who assumes the part of the principal defender in this ceremony. She it is who attempts to rescue the bride, and who more than any other mourns the fate of the captured wife. Among primitive peoples, with the exception of the symbol of wife-capture in marriage ceremonies, there is perhaps none more significant than that typifying the hatred of the mother for the captor of her daughter. Customs indicating estrangement or, actual aversion to sons-in-law, usually, if not always, accompany marriage by capture. The fact that the change in the relative positions of the sexes, as indicated by the _sadica_ and _ba’al_ forms of marriage in Arabia, was not easily or speedily accomplished, is apparent not only in the symbols of wife-capture everywhere practised among peoples in a certain stage of development, but is strongly suggested also by the aversion found to exist among these same peoples between mothers-in-law and sons-in-law, whether appearing as a reality or as a symbol.