WHY THE WOMEN RESIST

Prior to all these writers Sir John Lubbock advanced (98) still another theory of capture, real and sham.  Believing that men once had all their wives in common, he declares that

“capture, and capture alone, could originally give a man the right to monopolize a woman to the exclusion of his fellow-clansmen; and that hence, even after all necessity for actual capture had long ceased, the symbol remained; capture having, by long habit, come to be received as a necessary preliminary to marriage.”

This theory has the same shortcoming as the others.  While accounting for the capture, it does not explain the resistance of the women.  In real capture they had real reasons for kicking, biting, and howling, but why should they continue these antics in cases of sham capture?  Obviously another factor came into play here, which has been strangely overlooked—­parental persuasion or command.  Among savages a father owns his daughter as absolutely as his dog; he can sell or exchange her at pleasure; in Australia, “swapping” daughters or sisters is the commonest mode of marriage.  Now, stealing brides, or eloping to avoid having to pay for them, is of frequent occurrence everywhere among uncivilized races.  To protect themselves against such loss of personal property it must have occurred to parents at an early date that it would be wise to teach their daughters to resist all suitors until it has become certain that their intentions are honorable—­that is, that they intend to pay.  In course of time such teaching (strengthened by the girls’ pride at being purchased for a large sum) would assume the form of an inviolable command, having the force of a taboo and, with the stubbornness peculiar to many social customs, persisting long after the original reasons have ceased to exist.

In other words, I believe that the peculiar antics of the brides in cases of sham capture are neither due to innate feminine coyness nor are they a direct survival of the genuine resistance made in real capture; but that they are simply a result of parental dictation which assigns to the bride the role she must play in the comedy of “courtship.”  I find numerous facts supporting this view, especially in Reinsberg-Dueringsfeld’s Hochzeitsbuch and Schroeder’s Hochzeitsgebraeuche der Esten.

Describing the marriage customs of the Mordvins, Mainow says that the bridegroom sneaks into the bride’s house before daybreak, seizes her and carries her off to where his companions are waiting with their wagons.  “Etiquette,” he adds, “demands she should resist violently and cry loudly, even if she is entirely in favor of the elopement.”  Among the Votyaks girl-stealing (kukem) occurs to this day.  If the father is unwilling or asks too much, while the young folks are willing, the girl goes to work in the field and the lover carries her off. On