The words I have italicized indicate the passive rôle played by the
girls, who simply carry out the instructions given to them. The
parents are the stage-managers, and they know very well what they
want--money or brandy. Among the Mordvins, as soon as the suitor and
his friends are seen approaching the bride's house, it is barricaded,
and the defenders ask, "Who are you?" The answer is, "Merchants."
"What do you wish?" "Living goods." "We do not trade!" "We shall take
her by force." A show of force is made, but finally the suitors are
admitted, after paying twenty kopeks. In Little Russia it is customary
to barricade the door of the bride's house with a wheel, but after
offering a bottle of brandy as a "pass" the suitor's party is allowed
to enter.
Among the Esthonians custom _demands_ (Schroeder, 36), that a comedy
like the following be enacted. The intermediary comes to the bride's
house and pretends that he has lost a cow or a lamb, and asks
permission to hunt for it. The girl's relatives at first stubbornly
deny having any knowledge of its whereabouts, but finally they allow
the suitors to search, and the bride is usually found without much
delay. In Western Prussia (Berent district), after the bridegroom has
made his terms with the bride and her parents, he comes to their house
and says: "We were out hunting and saw a wounded deer run into this
house. May we follow its tracks?" Permission is granted, whereupon the
men start in pursuit of the bride, who has hidden away with the other
village maidens. At last the "hound"--one of the bridegroom's
companions--finds her and brings her to the lover.
Similar customs have prevailed in parts of Russia, Roumania, Servia,
Sardinia, Hungary, and elsewhere. In Old Finland the comedy continues
even after the nuptial knot has been tied. The bridal couple return
each to their home. Soon the groom appears at the bride's house and
demands to be admitted. Her father refuses to let him in. A "pass" is
thereupon produced and read, and this, combined with a few presents,
finally secures admission. In some districts the bride remains
invisible even during the wedding-dinner, and it is "good form" for
her to let the guests wait as long as possible, and not to appear
until after considerable coaxing by her mother. When a Votyak
bridegroom comes after the bride on the wedding-day she is denied to
him three times. After that she is searched for, dragged from her
hiding-place, and her face covered with a cloth, while she screams and
struggles. Then she is carried to the yard, placed on a blanket with
her face down, and the bridegroom belabors her with a stick on a
pillow which has been tied on her back. After that she becomes
obedient and amiable. A Mordvin bride must try to escape from the
wagon on the way to the church. In Old Finland the bride was
barricaded in her house even after the wedding, and the Island Swedes
have the same custom. This burlesque of bridal resistance after
marriage occurs also among the wild tribes of India. "After remaining
with her husband for ten days only," writes Dalton (192), "it is _the
correct thing_ for the wife to run away from him, and tell all her
friends that she loves him not and will see him no more." The
husband's duty is to seek her eagerly.
"I have seen a young wife thus found and claimed, and borne
away, screeching and struggling in the arms of her husband,
from the midst of a crowded bazaar. No one interferes on
these occasions."
More than enough has now been said to prove that in cases of sham
capture the girls simply follow their village customs blindly. Left to
themselves they might act very differently, but as it is, all the
girls in each district _must_ do the same thing, however silly. About
the real feelings of the girls these comedies tell us nothing
whatever. With coyness--that is, a woman's concealment of her feelings
toward a man she likes--these actions have no more to do than the man
in the moon has with anthropology. Least of all do they tell us
anything about love, for the girls must all act alike, whether they
favor a man or not. Regarding the absence of love we have, moreover,
the direct testimony of Dr. F. Kreutzwald (Schroeder, 233). That
marriages are made in heaven is, he declares, true in a certain sense,
so far as the Esthonians are concerned; for "the parties concerned
usually play a passive rôle.... Love is not one of the requisites, it
is an unknown phenomenon." Utilitarianism, he adds, is the basis of
their marriages. The suitor tries to ascertain if the girl he wants is
a good worker; to find this out he may even watch her secretly while
she is spinning, thrashing, or combing flax.
"Most of the men proceed at random, and it is not unusual
for a suitor who has been refused in one place and another
to proceed at once to a third or fourth.... Many a
bridegroom sees his bride for the first time at the ceremony
of the priestly betrothal, and he cannot therefore be blamed
for asking: 'Which of these girls is my bride?'"