Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/107

 CHAPTER VI.

MARRIAGE BY CAPTURE.

I. Rape.—Rape and marriage—Rape in Tasmania, Australia, New Guinea, Africa, America, among the Tartars, the Hindoos, the Hebrews, and the Celts—The rape of concubines in ancient Greece. II. Marriage by Capture.—The ceremonial of capture in marriage—Symbolic capture among the Esquimaux, the Indians of Canada, in Guatemala, among the Mongols, the aborigines of Bengal, in New Zealand, among the Arabs, the ancient Greeks, in ancient Rome, in Circassia, among the modern Celts, and in Livonia. III. Signification of the Ceremonial of Capture.—Violent exogamy has not been universal—Rape and marriage by purchase—What the ceremonial of capture means. I. Rape.

The marriage by capture, which we have now to consider, is not actually a form of marriage; it is only a manner of procuring one or more wives, whatever at the same time may be the prevailing matrimonial régime. If, however, we cannot dispense with the special study of marriage by capture, it is because it has been made to play a chief rôle in sociology. According to some authors, it has been a universal necessity, and must have preceded exogamy in all times and places.

Surely this too general theory may be contested; but it is beyond doubt that the rape of women has been widely practised all over the world, that very often it has been considered glorious, and that in many countries it has been attenuated into pacific marriage.

Nothing is more natural and simple than rape among savage or barbarous tribes, who hold violence in esteem and