Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 42.djvu/342

326 We need go no further than this, though many other changes ensue; and we will now see what traces may be found in the books of the Old Testament, to indicate that the Israelites passed through these several phases.

First, as to marriage by capture. We read in Genesis, xxxi, 26, that when Jacob had secretly made off with his wives and flocks, Laban upon overtaking him asked, "What hast thou done, that thou hast stolen away unawares to me, and carried away my daughters as captives taken with the sword?" From which it is evident that the practice of carrying off women by force was not unknown. In Numbers, xxxi, we read that the Israelites, having defeated Midian, saved thirty-two thousand virgins as booty. They had at first spared all the women, as spoil, which shows that it was quite usual to do so; but on this occasion Moses induced them to murder all those who were not virgins. In Deuteronomy, xx, 14, women are classed as spoil; and in Deuteronomy, xxi, 11, 14, are the regulations to be observed in taking to wife a woman captured in war. In the song of praise attributed to Deborah and Barak, when exulting over the defeat and death of Sisera, we find (Judges, v, 30): "Have they not sped? have they not divided the prey: to every man a damsel or two?" These are all cases of capture de facto, and they show conclusively that the Israelites captured women and took them to wife. That it was also a common practice among the neighboring nations we infer from I Samuel, xxx, 5, where David's two wives are carried off by a raiding party of Amalekites.

But, besides hostile captives, the Israelites had also marriage with the form of capture—an important point, for it shows that marriage by capture had formerly been the normal mode of obtaining a wife, and that the custom of ages had caused a semblance of violence to be considered necessary, even in marriages made by arrangement. The Old Testament phrase is to "take" a wife, as for example Genesis, xxiv, 67: "And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife"; Genesis, xxxviii, 2: "And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name was Shuah; and he took her"; Numbers, xii, 1: "For he (Moses) had taken an Ethiopian woman"; Judges, xiv, 7, 8: "And he went down and talked with the woman, and she pleased Samson well, and after a time he returned to take her"; Tobit, vii, 12, 13: "Then take her from henceforth according to the manner"; and "Behold, take her after the law of Moses." This "taking" was a form of capture. Dr. Smith, in his Dictionary of the Bible, article "Marriage," remarks that "taking a wife" seems to be literally meant, and that the "taking" was the chief ceremony in the constitution of a marriage. In the case of Samson we read: "They brought thirty