Among savages, the women sometimes have the right of giving their hand in marriage, sometimes not. The latter case is not surprising in countries where women are considered as merchandise. Among the Esquimaux every girl is betrothed from birth. Among the Boschimans, Ashantis, etc., the unborn girl is even betrothed while she is in her mother's womb! These betrothals are generally arranged by the maternal parents together with the mother.
Very often, however, the consent of the woman is required; or, the marriage may be only valid after the birth of the first child on condition of the woman's consent.
Among the American Indians, if the woman is not a consenting party she elopes with her lover and thus escapes the would-be-husband. In this way elopement has gradually become a recognized institution among certain races. I was told by a Bulgarian that the peasants in his country buy their wives from the father, generally for two or three hundred francs, but if the father demands too much, the women are raped. After this marriage becomes indispensable and the father receives nothing, for, in Bulgaria, which is not yet spoiled by civilization, unions apart from marriage are considered as a terrible disgrace.
In certain races, the woman has a free choice among several men and her wish becomes law, so that the parents have no voice in the matter; this occurs among the natives of the Celebes. The bridegroom is nevertheless obliged to pay the dowry demanded. Similar customs prevail among other races.
Westermark comes to the conclusion that in the primitive state of humanity the women had a much freer choice than afterward. Marriage by purchase developed later and constituted an intermediate stage. When the first civilizations became more complicated and recognized the value of woman's labor, the fathers began to sell their daughters, as we now see savage tribes abandon their women to prostitution with the white man. But in primitive times, when there was neither civilization, money, nor labor, properly so-called, each individual fought for his life and the father had no more possibility of selling his daughter as a slave than a gorilla or an orang-utan would have to-day.
Marriage by rape, which occurred after wars when the women were abducted and married against their will, must not be confounded with marriage by elopement which takes place with the woman's consent, and of which the latest fashion is elopement by automobile.
Among savages, the boys are also most often the property of the father, who has the right to sell them and even to put them to death. But they become free at the age of puberty and then have the right to marry according to their inclination without being forced by their parents.
There existed and still exist many patriarchal races (certain Indians and Asiatics, for example) among whom the father possesses unlimited power. The older he is the more he is honored, and the more his power is uncontested. All the children and grandchildren, with their wives and children, eat at his table; none of his descendants can marry without his consent, etc. The effects of patriarchism are deplorable and very immoral. The patriarch abuses his power—gives his old wives to his children and takes the young ones, for example. The purest and most virtuous Japanese girl is obliged to go to a brothel if her father orders it. The patriarch has the power of life and death over both sexes, and from this is derived the cult of ancestors. At the present day we see immorality of this kind in the Russian patriarchism among the peasants; the fathers have the custom of misusing their sons' wives. Patriarchism thus degenerates into atrocious tyranny on the part of the chief of the family, who becomes looked upon as a god.
A law which is common in the Latin races, which forbids marriage before the age of thirty, without the consent of the father, is a vestige of patriarchism.
We see, therefore, that quite primitive savage races approached our most modern ideas in liberty of choice in marriage. Between these two periods humanity was under the yoke of a barbarous error—the intermediate stage of marriage by purchase and patriarchal autocracy. There has existed and still exists more than one aberration of this kind in the intermediate stages of civilization; for instance, torture, slavery and the use of narcotic substances, such as alcohol.