SPARE HALF HOURS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1956, 20 August 1891, Page 39

SPARE HALF HOURS.

By F. A. Joseph. I

QUEER MARRIAGE CUSTOMS. Marriage as understood ty civilised nations is an institution of a far different order among savages. In both savage and barbarous nations the subjection of women is complete. The male is in the highest degree the lord of creation, while the female is a slave of the lowest order, possessing neither political nor social rights. It is only when we rise to a highly civilised state that the emancipation of women begins — begins I say advisedly, as even in the most highly civilised nations of to-day woman is not considered the equal of man, so difficult is it to root out old customs and old prejudices.

In nothing, perhaps, do we realise more the true estimation in which women were held, and are still held, than in the marriage customs of different races. Even among those nations of the ancient world which could lay the best claim to civilisation woman occupied an entirely subordinate position, except in the case of a queen, who then rose superior to the position occupied by women generally in the estimation of men.

Most savage tribes have marriage of some sort, but the idea of monogamy which lies at the foundation of civilised marriage and of civilised society is not understood by them. In taking the gradual development of any race from savagery, through barbarism to civilisation, the evolution of marriage culminating in monogamy — or the one-man-one-wife principle — is found to be a very gradual process. In their primitive condition all savage races know not marriage beyond the general intercourse of the sexes. Among all primitive races communal marriage was the only kind of marriage practised : that means that the women were merely the mothers of the children necessary to continue the tribe, while the idea of 11 wife " was not entertained. Primitive races practice the doctrine of free love advocated by some civilised persons, who surely must have undergone that process of development backwards called by evolutionists " degeneration." How anyone assuming the possession of sound reason can be found advocating such a truly animal system of marriage, when civilised communities recognise that the family system lies at the basis of national unity and national greatness— when it is recognised that all that is great and good and noble among men springs first from the love of home with its more than sacred ties, and next from love of country, of which the home Is an integral part, is beyond comprehension. While communal marriages were recognised in a tribe, no man had a greater right to any one woman thi*n any other man of the tribe. In time this system of intermarriage must have acted prejudicially upon the tribe, as all along the line of animal life we find "in-and-in" breeding injurious, and if carried too far the race first degenerates, and then dies out. The marriage of blood relations is a breach of natural law, and therefore a crime, if a high offence which is nevertheless legalised can be called a crime. In recognition of the danger to the race English custom sanctions mairiage between cousins (which is not allowed among many barbarous races), while second cousins are not allowed to marry.

But to return to my subject. A tribe no doubt feeling the enervating effect of continual intermarriage, would begin to cast about for a plan of counteracting the ill effects of their marriage system. Hence it came about that marriage by right of capture was first instituted. Among very primitive races the spoils of war fell to the portion of the individual who seized them, and female prisoners soon came to be recognised as the exclusive property of the person making the capture. No other person had any right to the slave so captured, who became the absolute property of the captor. In this truly savage manner was laid the foundation of monogamy, although at first a man was permitted to capture more than one wife, While the exclusive possession of a woman belonging to the tribe was looked upon as outrageous, inasmuch as the possessor would rob his neighbours of their conjoint rights, the sole possession of a female taken captive in battle was not so considered.

That this practice of marriage by capture was almost universal we have striking evidence in the mock capture which constitutes the chief portion of the marriage ceremony among so many partially civilised or semibarbarous peoples of to-day. Marriage by capture in its most brutal aspect is witnessed among the natives of Australia. Here the men are generally in excess of the women. Any man finding himself in want of that luxury, a wife— who is in other words a slave and a beast; of burden — takes the very first opportunity of capturing one. When on such an errand, if he discovers an unprotected female he stuns her with a club, and drags her to the nearest thicket by the hair, and awaits her recovery. When she comes to her senses he forces her to accompany him, and as at the worst it is but the exchange of one brutal lord for another, the woman enters into the spirit of the thing, and takes no great pains to escape, a3 though her new master were the lord of her own choice. This outrage is never resented by the relatives of the abducted female ; they only lie in wait to act similarly when the occasion arises.

In Bali, one of the islands between Java and New Guinea, it is the practice to steal girls by brutal rovers, who afterwards pay a certain compensation price to their relatives. Among the Hudson's Bay Indians it is the practice of the men to wrestle for the woman of their choice, and the strongest party always carries off the prize. A weak man is seldom permitted to keep a wife that a stronger man thinks worth his notice. On account of this practice the males from earliest childhood are upon all occasions trying their strength at wrestling. Among the Copper Indians Franklin noticed the same practice, and more than once saw a stronger man assert his right to take the wife of a weaker countryman. That the practice of wife capture by brute

force was tolerably universal is borne out by the curious customs observed as part of the marriage ceremony among semi -barbarous people. From being a reality it gradually came to be more and more of a mock ceremony. Speaking of the Khonds of Orissa, a traveller says that on one occasion he heard loud cries proceeding from a village close at hand. " Fearing some quarrel," says the narrator, " I rode to the spot, and there I saw a man bearing away upon his back something enveloped in an ample covering of scarlet cloth. He was surI rounded by 20 or 30 young fellows, and by them protected from the desperate attacks made upon him by a party of young women. On seeking an explanation of this novel I scene I was told that the man had just been married, and his precious burden was his blooming bride, whom he was conveying to I his own village. Her youthful friends (as it I appears is the custom) were seeking to regain possession of her, and hurled stones and bamboos at the head of the devoted bridegroom until he reached the confines of his own village."

Not only among the Khonds but also among other central Indian tribes does this system of mook wife capture form part of the marriage ceremony. Among the Kalmucks the girl is first mounted on a spirited horse, and then rides off at full speed. Her lover pursues, and if he overtakes her he claims her as his wife, and the marriage is solemnised on the spot, after which she returns with him to his tent. Bat sometimes the girl does not wish to be caught by that particular pursuer, and it is said there is no single instance of a Kalmuck girl having been thus caught unless she were willing to be captured.