Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/113

 by, but the mind is still haunted by it, and even in peaceful marriages, after the contract or bargain is concluded, men like to symbolise in the ceremonial the rapes of former days, which they cannot and dare not any longer commit. These practices have also another bearing: they signify that the bride, then nearly always purchased from her parents, must be in complete subjection to the master that has been given her, and occupy the humblest place in the conjugal house.

For all these reasons the symbolic ceremonial of capture has been, or is still, in use with many races at the celebration of their marriages. In some degree it is found all over the world. Among the Esquimaux of Cape York the marriages are arranged in a friendly way by the parents of the future couple, and nevertheless, from the infancy of the latter, the conjugal ceremony must simulate a capture. The future bride must fly, must defend herself with her feet and hands, scream at the height of her voice, until her new master has succeeded in taking her to his hut, where she at once settles happily.

In the same way, in Greenland the bridegroom captures his bride, or has her captured for him; and in the latter case he has recourse to the help of two or three old women.

With the Indians of Canada, where sometimes a true marriage is concluded in presence of the chief of the tribe, when he has pronounced the matrimonial formula, "the husband turns round, stoops down, takes his wife on his back, and carries her to his tent, amid the acclamations of the spectators."

Some Redskin tribes, observed by Lafitau, symbolised rape even in the intimate relations between young couples. The husband was obliged to enter the wigwam of his wife in the night; it would be a grave impropriety for him to approach it in the day-time.

In ancient Guatemala, where marriages were celebrated with a certain pomp, the father of the bridegroom sent a deputation of friends to seek the bride, and one of these