Among several Australian tribes, a feigned form of capture precedes marriage.[34] Is this a survival of actual capture in the stage of hostility, the pre-tribal stage? Or is it the result of girlish modesty in the bride?
Note: Mr. Morgan's 'Reformatory Movement': It is proper to note that, in his preface to Kamilaroi and Kurnai (p. 5), Mr. Morgan wrote, 'it is not supposable that savages design, consciously, reformatory movements in the strict sense.' For his theory cannot escape the conclusion that, in fact, they did.
[1] Op. cit. p. 61.
[2] Spencer and Gillen, p. 57.
[3] Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871); and Ancient Society (1877); earlier in The League of the Iroquois (1854).
[4] So Mr. Fison candidly states, and Mr. Morgan saw his work, and wrote an introductory essay. Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 99.
[5] Kamilaroi and Kurnai, pp. 160-161.
[6] Ancient Society, pp. 49-50.
[7] Cf. The Mystic Rose, pp. 444-445. Westermarck, p. 352.