page_title: Raptio
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Raptio / History
context_page_description: Raptio is a Latin term for the large-scale abduction of women, i.e. kidnapping for marriage, concubinage or sexual slavery. The equivalent term Frauenraub, originally from German, is used in English in the field of art history.
  Bride kidnapping is distinguished from raptio in that the former is the abduction of one woman by one man, whereas the latter is the abduction of many women by groups of men, possibly in a time of war.
context_section_description: The practice is surmised to have been common since anthropological antiquity. In Neolithic Europe, excavation of the Linear Pottery culture site at Asparn-Schletz, Austria, the remains of numerous slain victims were found. Among them, young adult females and children were clearly under-represented, suggesting that attackers had killed the men but abducted the nubile females.
  Abduction of women is a common practice in warfare among tribal societies, along with cattle raiding. In historical human migrations, the tendency of mobile groups of invading males to abduct indigenous females is reflected in the greater stability of Human mitochondrial DNA haplogroups compared to Human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups. 
  The Rape of the Sabine Women is an important part of the foundation legends of Rome (8th century BC). Romulus had established the settlement on the Palatine Hill with mostly male followers. Seeking wives, the Romans negotiated with the neighboring tribe of the Sabines, without success. Faced with the extinction of their community, the Romans planned to abduct Sabine women. Romulus invited Sabine families to a festival of Neptune Equester. At the meeting he gave a signal, at which the Romans grabbed the Sabine women and fought off the Sabine men. The indignant abductees were implored by Romulus to accept Roman husbands. Livy claims that no sexual assault took place. He asserted that Romulus offered them free choice and promised civil and property rights to women. According to Livy he spoke to them each in person, "and pointed out to them that it was all owing to the pride of their parents in denying right of intermarriage to their neighbours. They would live in honourable wedlock, and share all their property and civil rights, and—dearest of all to human nature—would be the mothers of free men." The women married Roman men, but the Sabines went to war with the Romans. The conflict was eventually resolved when the women, who now had children by their Roman husbands, intervened in a battle to reconcile the warring parties. The tale is parodied by English short-story writer Saki in The Schartz-Metterklume Method. It also serves as the main plot of the movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.
  In Sanskrit literature, the practice is known as Rakshasa Vivaha ("devil marriage"), mentioned e.g. by Kautilya. It is one of the eight forms of Hindu marriage, the violent seizure or rape of a girl after the defeat or destruction of her relatives (Manu Smrti 3.33).
  In the 3rd century, Gothic Christianity appears to have been initiated under the influence of Christian women captured by the Goths in Moesia and Thrace: in 251 AD, the Gothic army raided the Roman provinces of Moesia and Thrace, defeated and killed the Roman emperor Decius, and took a number of (predominantly female) captives, many of whom were Christian. This is assumed to represent the first lasting contact of the Goths with Christianity.
  In the Qur'an, marriage to female prisoners of war who embraced Islam is recommended for those who cannot afford to marry other Muslim women according to Islamic law (Sura 4:25).
  Mutual abduction of women between Christian and Muslim communities was common in the Balkans under Ottoman rule, and is a frequent theme in the Hajduk songs of the period.
caption: Mapuches kidnapping a woman during a malón raid as shown in La vuelta del malón (The return of the raiders) by Ángel Della Valle (1892).
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