STEALING A WIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 70, 23 March 1935, Page 13

STEALING A WIFE.

BOY « GANGSTERS» AND MARRIAGE. BELGRADE, February 20. Owing to economic pressure, a new form of marriage by capture is springing up, particularly among the Mohammedan population, in the Kossovo district of Southern Serbia. Marriage by capture has been prevalent in this district from the remotest times, and, xuitil recently, has not, generally speaking, been regarded with disfavour. It was usually arranged, with a certain amount of picturesque ceremony, by well-intended matchmakers, and ended up with the blessing of the parents. Of late, however, the large sums demanded of tho prospective husband by the parents of marriageable daughters have become entirely beyond the reach of the average suitor, and bands of young men, who almost might _ be described as gangsters, have organised themselves for the definite purpose of stealing wives for each other. So serious has the state of affairs become that parents living in the country often feel obliged to give their daughters hi marriage to the first comer, or else to send them away to the houses of friends in the towns.