BRIDEGROOMS BY FORCE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXIX, Issue 7813, 4 June 1909, Page 1

BRIDEGROOMS BY FORCE.

According-,to a writer m the Travel Magazyio- there-:is a country m whichwomen propose. The-Hopi Indian maiden is the advanced women who not only invites her chosen one to undertake matrimony, but if necessary brings him to the\ altar, or its Hopi substitute, by main force. When a girl has selected her victim, says our authority, she simply calls upon his mother and talks the matter over. If the old lady lends a willing ear the matter is settled forthwith, and the young man has no course left open excepting to bow to the inevitable. At times, it is said, violence has-been resorted to to drag an unwilling youth to the altar. Once the affair has been settled to the satisfaction of the women concerned, the girl goes to work, to grind meal for her prospective mother-in-law for a period of thirty days, while the man is set to work to weave his future bride's wedding garments. At the expiration of the thirty-day period the ceremony takes place. Whenever a ILopi maiden feels that the time has arrived when she should begin to think seriously of choosing a husband, she does up her hair m two gigantic whorls, one over each ear. These are danger signals warning the young men of her community that she is looking for a husband. Flight is the only hope of the bachelor unwilling to be wed, for the mothers are so jealous of the prerogative of their sex that they rarely interpose on behalf of an unwilling son, and the fathers arc not consulted.