MARRIAGE BY CAPTURE.
Various attempts have been made to account for the prevalence among
peoples of all degrees of culture of what has been called “marriage by
capture,” or of rites which furnish evidence of its former existence.
Mr. M’Lennan traces it to infanticide, which by “rendering women
scarce, led at once to polyandry within the tribe, and the capturing of
women from without.” On the other hand, Sir John Lubbock ascribes the
origin of “marriage by capture” to a desire on the part of individuals
to acquire women for themselves, “without infringing on the general
rights of the tribe.” According to this view, communal marriage was
replaced by special connections, accompanied by the introduction of
a foreign element, giving rise to the practice of _exogamy_. The
reference to this practice (the necessity for which must, if Mr.
M’Lennan’s idea is correct, have preceded “marriage by capture,”
instead of the latter originating it) unnecessarily complicates the
question under discussion.
Although exogamy is often associated with forcible marriage, the two
things are perfectly distinct, and they have had totally different
origins. Mr. Morgan very justly connects the former with certain ideas
entertained by primitive peoples with regard to blood relationship,
and it can be explained most simply and rationally as _marriage out
of the clan_, it having sprang from the belief that all the members of
a clan are related by blood, and therefore incapable of being united
in marriage. This view is confirmed by the fact that tribes which are
_endogamous_ in relation to other tribes are _exogamous_ in the sense
that they comprise several clans, the members of none of which can
intermarry among themselves. We have a curious example of this limited
exogamy in the Chinese, among whom persons bearing the same family name
are not permitted to intermarry. True endogamy would seem to exist
among very few peoples, and when it is practised the custom is probably
due to special circumstances, which, giving prominence to a particular
clan, have enabled them to claim a caste privilege, or it may be owing
to a necessity arising from the complete severance of the members of a
clan from their fellows. The scarcity of women, whether occasioned by
infanticide or polygamy, may have rendered exogamy more requisite, and
it may have been complicated by forcible marriage, but none of these
have any real bearing on its origin.
It could be shown without difficulty that the opinion entertained by
the writers I have referred to, that the primitive condition of man was
one of communal marriage, is untenable, and if I am correct in this
conclusion, there will be no occasion to consider the argument that
“marriage by capture” depended on such a social condition. The idea
that “marriage by capture” originated in the necessity for exogamy,
arising from infanticide or some other practice, is more plausible,
and such an explanation of the custom may be accepted where it is
not universal in a tribe, but resorted to only in particular cases or
under special conditions. The capture of wives among the Australian
aborigines is expressly accounted for by Oldfield as being due to the
scarcity of women. But where forcible marriage can be traced to the
action of individual caprice it must be treated as exceptional, and
some other explanation must be sought for the widespread practices
which are supposed to prove the former prevalence of that custom. From
this standpoint Mr. M’Lennan’s explanation is far from satisfactory,
as may be shown by analysis of the incidents attendant on “marriage by
capture,” as practised by different peoples.
It is true that sometimes the carrying off of the bride is resisted
by her friends, and is attended in some cases, as among the Welsh
down to a comparatively recent period, by a sham fight between them
and the friends of the bridegroom; although among other peoples, as
with the Khonds of India, the protection of the bride is left to
her female companions. In the great majority of cases cited by Sir
John Lubbock, however, the suitor forcibly removes the bride without
any hindrance from her friends. Occasionally, as with the Tunguses,
the New Zealanders, and the Mandingos, she strongly resists. Among
other peoples, as with the Esquimaux, the resistance is usually only
pretended, and is thus analogous to the sham fight already referred to.
In all these cases alike, however, it is the girl only who has to be
conquered, and if the resistance were real it would depend on herself
whether or not she should be captured. There are other incidents of
this forcible marriage which have more significance than has hitherto
been attached to them. Among the New Zealanders, if the girl who
is being carried off can break away from her captor and regain her
father’s house, the suitor loses all chance of ever obtaining her in
marriage. So, also, among the Fijians, if a woman does not approve of
the man who has taken her by force to his house, she leaves him for
some one who can protect her. Among the Fuegians the girl who is not
willing to accept her would-be husband does not wait to be carried off,
but hides herself in the woods, and remains concealed until he is tired
of looking for her. According to Mongol custom, the bride hides herself
with some of her relations, and the bridegroom has to search for and
find her. Something like the Fuegian custom is practised by the Aitas,
among whom the bride has to conceal herself in a wood, where the suitor
must find her before sunset.
In these cases the will of the bride-elect is a very important element,
and it is equally so in those cases where she is captured and carried
off only after a prolonged chase. Thus, with the Kalmucks, according
to Dr. Clarke, the girl gallops away at full speed, pursued by her
suitor, and if she does not wish to marry him she always effects her
escape. An analogous custom is found among the uncultured tribes of the
Malayan Peninsula. Here, however, the chase is on foot, and generally
round a circle, although sometimes in the forest, and, as Bourien
(quoted by Sir John Lubbock) says, the pursuer is successful only if
he “has had the good fortune to please the intended bride.” A similar
custom is found among the Koraks of NorthEastern Asia. Here the
ceremony takes place within a large tent containing numerous separate
compartments (_pologs_), arranged in a continuous circle around its
inner circumference. Mr. Kennan (in his “Tent Life in Siberia”) gives
an amusing and instructive description of such a ceremony. The women of
the encampment, armed with willow and alder rods, stationed themselves
at the entrances of the pologs, the front curtains of which were
thrown up. Then, at a given signal, “the bride darted suddenly into
the first polog, and began a rapid flight around the tent, raising
the curtains between the pologs successively, and passing under. The
bridegroom instantly followed in hot pursuit, but the women who were
stationed in each compartment threw every possible impediment in his
way, tripping up his unwary feet, holding down the curtains to prevent
his passage, and applying the willow and alder switches unmercifully
to a very susceptible part of his body as he stooped to raise them....
With undismayed perseverance he pressed on, stumbling headlong over the
outstretched feet of his female persecutors, and getting constantly
entangled in the ample folds of the reindeer-skin curtains, which
were thrown with the skill of a matador over his head and eyes. In a
moment the bride had entered the last closed polog near the door, while
the unfortunate bridegroom was still struggling with his accumulated
misfortunes about half way round the tent. I expected,” says the
traveller, “to see him relax his efforts and give up the contest when
the bride disappeared, and was preparing to protest strongly on his
behalf against the unfairness of the trial; but, to my surprise, he
still struggled on, and with a final plunge, burst through the curtain
of the last polog, and rejoined his bride,” who had waited for him
there. Mr. Kennan adds that “the intention of the whole ceremony was
evidently to give the woman an opportunity to marry the man or not, as
she chose, since it was obviously impossible for him to catch her under
such circumstances, unless she voluntarily waited for him in one of the
pologs.”
Judging only from the element of force observable in what are termed
“marriages by capture,” the explanation of them given by Mr. M’Lennan
appears reasonable. But, although capture may be an incident of
exogamy, the customs under consideration are really connected with
endogamy, in the sense that the parties to them belong to a common
tribe. Moreover, those customs are wanting in another of the elements
which would be necessary to justify their being classed as “survivals”
of an earlier practice of forcible exogamy. This pre-supposes the
absence of consent on the part of the relatives of the bride, but
the so-called marriage by capture is nearly always preceded by an
arrangement with them. The only exception among the various examples of
such marriages mentioned by Sir John Lubbock is that of the inhabitants
of Bali, where the man is said to forcibly carry off his bride to the
woods, and to _afterwards_ effect reconciliation with her “enraged”
friends. It is not improbable, however, that rage may be simulated in
this case as in others, and that the capture is arranged beforehand
with them. Sir John Lubbock himself explains an apparent act of lawless
violence among the Mandingos as an incident of “marriage by capture,”
on the ground that the bride’s relatives “only laughed at the farce,
and consoled her by saying that she would soon be reconciled to her
situation;” and it appears that her mother had previously given her
consent to the proceeding. A mere general understanding, if universally
recognised, would indeed be as efficacious as a special consent,
and whether the consent of the parent has to be obtained previously
to overcoming the opposition of the bride, or whether this has to
be overcome as a condition precedent to the consent being given, is
practically of no importance. We seem to have an example of the latter
in the marriage customs of the Afghans as described by Elphinstone.
Among this people wives are always purchased, and the necessity for
paying the usual price is not done away with, although a man is allowed
to make sure of his bride by cutting off a lock of her hair, snatching
away her veil, or throwing a sheet over her, if he declares at the same
time that she is his affianced wife.
The facts just mentioned lead to the conclusion that the “capture”
which forms the most prominent incident in the marriage customs under
discussion, has a totally different significance from that which is
connected with exogamy in the sense supposed by Mr. M’Lennan and Sir
John Lubbock. In the latter case force is resorted to to prevent the
possibility of opposition by the tribe to whom the victim of the
violence belongs; but in the former, as the consent of the woman’s
relatives had already been given, expressly or by implication, the
force must be to overcome the possible opposition of the woman
herself, whether this may arise from bashfulness or from an actual
dislike to the suitor. We have here an important distinction, and
it points to a state of society where women have acquired a right
to exercise a choice in the matter of marriage. Before this right
could be fully established the suitor would be allowed to obtain her
compliance by force, if necessary, as with the Greenlanders, among
whom, according to Crantz, the bride, if, after she has been captured
by the old women who negotiated the marriage, she cannot be persuaded
by kind and courteous treatment, is “compelled by force, nay, sometimes
by blows, to change her state.” But even among the Greenlanders, if
a girl had great repugnance to her suitor, she could escape marriage
by betaking herself to the mountains. A still more efficacious plan
is the cutting off of her hair, which frees her from all importunity,
as it is accepted as a sure sign that she has determined never to
marry. “Marriage by capture” has thus relation not to the tribe but
to the individual immediately concerned, and it is based on her power
to withhold her consent to the contract made between her suitor and
her relatives. Among some uncultured peoples the opposition of the
bride-elect is effectually overcome by force, but it is seldom that
she is not allowed the opportunity of escaping a marriage which she
dislikes. When once it has become usual for the bride to show a real
or simulated opposition to the proposed marriage, as might easily be
the case among peoples who, although uncultured, esteem chastity before
marriage, it would in course of time be firmly established as a general
custom. Thus, when a Greenland young woman is asked in marriage she
professes great bashfulness, tears her ringlets, and runs away. When
the show of opposition had become a matter of etiquette, it would,
notwithstanding that the marriage had been previously arranged, be
joined in by the friends of the bride, who, by a fiction, is being
carried off against her will. Hence the customs of having a sham fight
before the bridegroom is allowed to gain possession of his prize, and
the placing of impediments in the way of his catching her in the chase,
neither of which has any relation to a supposed primitive practice of
forcible abduction from a hostile tribe.
It will be said, however, if the relations of the bride have consented
to her marriage, why do they oppose the carrying into effect of their
agreement? Much light is thrown on this point by the description given
by Colonel Dalton of the customs of the hill-tribes of Bengal.[249]
With many of the aboriginal peoples of India, and with some Sudra
castes, one of the most important ceremonies of marriage is the
application of the _Sindur_ to the forehead of the bride; this consists
in the bridegroom making, usually with vermilion, a red mark between
her eyes. In some places, however, particularly in Singhbum, among the
Hos, the bridegroom and bride mark each other with blood, signifying
that by marriage they become one. Colonel Dalton supposes this to be
the origin of the _Sindrahan_, a custom which is as singular as it is
widespread. With the Oraons, a Dravidian tribe, the same ceremony is
practised, but in secret. A veil is cast over the bridal pair, who
are then covered with another piece of stuff held by some of their
male relations, while others mount guard, fully armed, as though to
kill any one who might approach to interfere with the ceremony. In the
Singhbum villages the ceremony is modified, and the engaged couple
drink beer from the same vessel. This signifies that they form only
one body, belong to the same _kili_—in other words, that the woman
is admitted to the clan of her husband. Dr. Hunter, in his admirable
work entitled “Annals of Rural Bengal,” says the great event of the
life of a Santal is the union of his “tribe” with another “tribe” in
marriage. No individual can marry a member of his own clan, and the
woman in marrying abandons the clan of her father, as well as his gods,
to adopt the clan and the gods of her husband. The ceremony by which
the Santals express this separation is different from that adopted
by the Hos. The husband’s clansmen knot together the garments of the
bridegroom and the bride, after which the women of the bride’s clan
bring lighted charcoal, crush it with a pestle to indicate the breaking
of the old family tie, and then extinguish it with water to indicate
the definitive separation of the bride from her own clan. As we have
seen, this separation is effected among the Oraons in the presence
of the members of the two clans, and the sham combat by which the
marriage ceremonies commence is evidently intended to show that it is
indispensable to obtain the consent, not only of the bride, but also
of the family group to which she belongs, before the ties which bind
her to the clan can be broken. After offering a pretended resistance,
the clansmen of the bride express their consent in joining with the
relations of the bridegroom to celebrate the formation of the fresh
family tie.
At first sight, it might be thought that there is little difference
between this explanation of “marriage by capture” and that given by
Sir John Lubbock, but in reality they differ completely. Sir John
Lubbock supposes a violent capture from another tribe without any
reference to the question of clanship. On the other hand, in the
explanation above proposed, there is a change in the position of the
woman, but it is brought about by arrangement, the pretended combat
having relation to the rights of the clan, but having no reference
to the wider organisation of the tribe. The sham-fight is simply a
phase of the ceremonies, destined to show the objection entertained
by a family group to part with one of its members, and, what is of
still greater importance, to give up the interest they possess in the
future offspring of the woman who is to be cut off from the clan.
The essentially pacific character of the sham-fight is shown by the
manner in which, as described by Colonel Dalton, it is conducted in
Gondwana. Among the Muasi of this district, when the cavalcade of the
bridegroom approaches the house of the bride, there issues from it a
merry troop of young girls, who are headed by the mother of the bride,
bearing on her head a vessel full of water, surmounted by a lighted
lamp. When the girls come near the bridegroom’s friends they throw at
them balls of boiled rice, after which they beat a retreat. The young
men pursue them to the door of the house, which, however, they cannot
enter until they have made presents to its female defenders. The fact
that among nearly all the peoples who have “marriage by combat,” the
children belong to the clan of their father, confirms the truth of the
conclusion I have sought to establish, that the ceremony in question
has relation to the clan, and not to the bride. Among the primitive
peoples to whom it would be necessary, on the hypothesis of Sir John
Lubbock, to trace the origin of that curious custom, the children
usually belong to the family group of their mother. The sham-fight
could be introduced when a change has taken place in the condition of
women; but this would imply a phase of civilisation much more recent
than that of the Australians and other barbarous tribes, to whose
practice of stealing women for wives, which is mere forcible marriage,
has been wrongly traced the origin of “marriage by capture.”
FOOTNOTES:
[249] The Ethnology of Bengal.