The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1866-03-03
Marriage by Capture.

A work has lately been puOllShed at
Edinburgh, on Primitive Marriage, making
inquiry into the origin of the form of cap
ture in marriage ceremonies In q review
of this book, the London Atheneum gives an
interesting summary showing the extent to
which the practice has prevailed, and the
antiquity which it can claim
1t is singular fact that the brute who
sells, or rather who used to sell, his wife,
at fair or in market place, and the bride on
whose fair finger is placed the golden link
which binds her to her lord, are alike pre-
servers and followers of the primitive Gus
toms connected with marriage. The brute,
in one place, and the bride in another,
symbolic the ancient spirit of wooing and
wedd ing, which made her the legal captive
of her husband. In our very terms the an
cient form of capture is, perhaps, to be trac-
ed. A man speaks of taking a wife," but
a woman never remarks that she is is"takiDg
a husband" a,
The term chest man" is used in Norway
in the same sense as it is used with us but
it there originally implied the friend of the
bridegroom who had the strongest arm,
and who could most effectually WELD the
heaviest weapon against all assailants who
might attempt to recapture the bride. II
is even suggested that throwing an old shoe
after the welded couple as they depart
from the ladys old home is not, as it is now
interpreted, for luck, but a remnant of a
marriage ceremony of olden times, when the
inhabitants of the district from which the
bride was taken, flung missiles at the hus-
band, in order to cause him to desist from
carrying off their sister or friend The lat
ter ceremony--for it is now only mere, but
still a lively, ceremony-is common among
some of the hill.people of Hiudostan;
among others, q thread cast round the neck
is of equal significance to bride with the
ring which the bridegroom dainty passes
over the finger, which, pretty but ground
less legend tells US, has some mySte-
rous nervous connection with the heart.
Kalmuck wooers must still first catch
their brides before they can adorn their
homes with wives aud after the damsel
allows herself to be caught, and the mar
riage is solemnzed, the symbol of capture
is maintained by her being lifted on horse
back apparently against her will, just as the
North Friesland " rde.lifter" hoists the
bride and her maid upon the wagon, which
is TO take its way to the new home.
Throughout every portion of the globe,
Mr., McLennan finds proofs, more or less
striking, of the primitive form of marriage
by capture. We know that William the
Conqueror very roughly wooed Matilda, of
Flanders, by knocking her down, and some
Australasian savages, at this day, follow
the same form of taking possession or in
dicating mastersbip. "When an Australia
sian sees woman whom he likes, he tells
her to follow him, and when she refuses, he
forces her to accompany him by blows, end
ing by knocking her down and carrying her
of" M
In primitive times, when it was (as it
often is now) unlawful for man to marry
with his tribe-all of one tribe being con-
Sdered as consanguinous, though such cor
sideration was systematically violated in
other tribes, the arlike bachelors made war
against strange tribes, which were once, per-
haps, akin to them, and carried off the
freight which they most coveted. aLe
In thousand classical stories the SYM
boil of capture presents ITSELF Pluto ereptS
Proserpine, aud Boreas captures the
Oritbyia whom heloves. Even the Mosa-
ic code, by which unions between Jew and
Gentle girl were prohibited, allowed the
SucceSslul Hebrew victor TO marry women
of any foreign tribe that had succumbed to
Hebrew arms.
In the famous case in " Tristram Shandy,"
the courts of law decided that the duchess
of Suffolk was not akin to her own son.
My uncle Toby could not help thinking
that there must have been some blood re-
lationship between mother and child, but
the defunct Dukes sister was pronounced
heir to her brother. What here seems o
good joke was sober earnest in another way
of affinity, among tribes where polyandry
was the practice, and one was the wife of
halfa dozen husbands, who were, in some
districts, not related in others (more Gre
spectable'), they were all brothers. In
these households, the paternity being uncer-
tain, there was no recognized relationship
between father and children. In these
tribes, when pater-familias died, it was
his sister and her children, not his wife and
her offspring, who we're his heirs. In ma
iority ofsuch tribes-in those once existing,
for instance In North America chill
dren were always looked upon as belong
ing to the tribe of the mother.