Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/783

 RELA TION OF SEX TO PRIMITIVE SOCIAL CONTROL 769

the parents, but scrupulously take care not to turn over the same horses or

the same articles This is the custom alike of the Walla-Wallas, Nez-

Percs, Cayuse, Waskows, Flatheads, and Spokans. 1

In Patagonia the usual custom is for the bridegroom, after he has secured the consent of his damsel, to send either a brother or some intimate friend to the parents, offering so ma/iy mares, horses, or silver ornaments for the bride. If the parents consider the match desirable, as soon after as circum- stances will permit, the bridegroom, dressed in his best, and mounted on his best horse, proceeds to the toldo of his intended, and hands over the gifts ; the parents then return gifts of equivalent value, which, however, in the event of a separation are the property of the bride. 2

Marriage by capture is an immediate expression of male force. This form of obtaining a wife has been very widespread, and, like marriage by settlement in the house of the wife, is an expedient for obtaining a wife outside the group where marriage by purchase is not developed, or where the suitor cannot offer property for the bride. It is an unsocial procedure and does not persist in a growing society, for it involves retaliation and blood feud. But it is a desperate means of avoiding the constraint and embarrass- ment of a residence in the family and among the relatives of the wife, where the power of the husband is hindered, and the male disposition is not satisfied in this matter short of personal own- ership.

The man also sometimes lives under the maternal system in regular marriage, but escapes its disadvantages by stealing a sup- plementary wife or purchasing a slave woman, over whom and whose children he has full authority. In the Babar archipelago, where the maternal system persists even in the presence of mar- riage by purchase, and the man lives in the house of the woman, and the children are reckoned with the mother, it is considered highly honorable to steal an additional wife from another group, and in this case the children belong to the father. 3 Among the Kinlnmdas of Africa children belong to the maternal uncle, who

SCHOOLCRAFT, lot. , (' .654.

LIEUTENANT MUSTERS, "On the Races of Patagonia," Jour. Anth. lust Vol. I, p. 201.

3 R. STEINMETZ, Ethnotogische Studitn zur, ickelung Jtr Straft, Vol.

II. p. 272.