Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/134

 The Turcomans have customs very similar to those of the Tartars. With them the price of the girl is chiefly reckoned in camels, and it generally takes five to pay for a girl; but as in their eyes the woman is not an object of luxury, as she not only has to manage the housekeeping but to manufacture articles which have an exchange value, and which are profitable to the family, experienced women and widows, provided they are passable, are much more sought for in the conjugal market than young girls. It is no longer five camels, but fifty, or even a hundred, that must be paid for a widow still in good condition. If the suitor cannot immediately get together the price of the woman he covets, he has recourse to marriage by capture, and takes refuge with his bride in a neighbouring camp.

A settlement is always effected, matters are compounded, and the ravisher engages to pay a certain number of camels and horses, which he generally procures by marauding on the frontiers of Persia. It is a veritable debt of honour for him, and he must pay it with the least possible delay.

These barbarous customs of Mongolia are naturally softened in China, but without any essential change in their main features. There, as well as in Tartary, the young girl is considered as the property of her parents, and her training is so perfect that she has not the slightest desire to be consulted before being married, or rather sold, for ready money. In the Chinese family, daughters count for so little value that they are only called by ordinal numbers—first-born, second-born, etc.—to which is added a surname. The price of the daughter when purchased is paid to the parents in two separate portions—the first on the conclusion of the agreement and the signing of the contract, and the other on the wedding-day. Marriage by capture has naturally gone out of use in the old civilisation of China, but the trace of it still remains in the ceremonial,