The jus primae noctis granted to the friends of the bridegroom may, however, be derived from another source. Touching the capture of wives, Mr. Brough Smyth states that, in New South Wales and about Riverina, “in any instance where the abduction has taken place by a party of men for the benefit of some one individual, each of the members of the party claims, as a right, a privilege which the intended husband has no power to refuse.”[395] A similar custom prevails, according to Mr. Johnston, among the Wa-taïta in Eastern Central Africa, though the capture here is a symbol only. After the girl has been bought by the bridegroom, she runs away and affects to hide. Then she is sought out by him and three or four of his friends. When she is found, the men seize her and carry her off to the hut of her future husband, where she is placed at the disposal of her captors.[396] In such cases the jus primae noctis is a reward for a good turn done, or perhaps, as Mr. McLennan suggests,[397] a common war-right, exercised by the captors of the woman. If we knew all the circumstances, this explanation might prove to hold good also with regard to the right granted to the wedding-guests in the cases we have mentioned. At any rate, it must be admitted that these strange customs may be interpreted in a much simpler way than that suggested by Sir John Lubbock.
There are some instances of jus primae noctis accorded to a particular person, a chief or a priest. Thus, among the Kinipetu-Eskimo, the Ankut, or high-priest has this right.[398] Among the Caribs, the bridegroom received his bride from the hand of the Piache, or medicine-man, and certainly not as a virgin.[399] A similar custom is met with among certain Brazilian tribes, though in some of these cases it is to the chief that the right in question belongs.[400] The Spanish nobleman Andagova states that, in Nicaragua, a priest living in the temple was with the bride during the night preceding her marriage.[401] And among the Tahus in Northern Mexico according to Castañeda, the droit du seigneur was accorded to the cacique.[402]
In descriptions of travel in the fifteenth century, the aboriginal inhabitants of Teneriffe are represented as having married no woman who had not previously spent a night with the chief, which was considered a great honour.[403] The same right, according to Dr. Barth, was presumably granted to the chief of Bagele in Adamáua;[404] and, according to Herodotus, to the king of the ancient Adyrmachidae.[405] Navarette tells us that, on the coast of Malabar, the bridegroom brought the bride to the king, who kept her eight days in his palace; and the man took it “as a great honour and favour that his king would make use of her.”[406] Again, according to Hamilton, a Samorin could not take his bride home for three nights, during which the chief priest had a claim to her company.[407] Sugenheim believes even that, in certain parts of France, a similar right was accorded to the higher clergy during the Middle Ages.[408]
Yet Dr. Karl Schmidt has endeavoured, in a learned work, to prove that the droit du siegneur never existed in Europe, the later belief in it being merely “ein gelehrter Aberglaube,” which arose in various ways. Thus there was classical witness to ancient traditions of tyrants, who had distinguished themselves by such proceedings as that right was supposed to legalize. From various parts of the world came reports of travellers as to tribes among whom defloration was the privilege or duty of kings, priests, or other persons set apart for the purpose. A grosser meaning than the words will warrant had, besides, in Dr. Schmidt’s opinion, been attached to the fine paid by the vassal to his feudal lord for permission to marry. That law, he says, which is believed to have extended over a large part of Europe, has left no evidence of its existence in laws, charters, decretals, trials, or glossaries.[409]
This is not the proper place to discuss Dr. Schmidt’s hypothesis; but his arguments do not seem to be conclusive.[410] Several writers speak of estate-owners in Russia who claimed the droit du seigneur in the last and even the present century;[411] and a friend of mine informs me that, when travelling in that country, he met with aged men whose wives had been victims of the custom. It was certainly a privilege taken by the law of might. But how in such cases shall we draw the line between might and what is properly accepted as right?
Bachofen, Giraud-Teulon, Kulischer, and other writers[412] regard the jus primae noctis accorded to a special person, as a remnant of a primitive state of promiscuity or “communal marriage.” It is, in their opinion, a transformation of the ancient communal right, which was taken away from the community and transferred to those who chiefly represented it—the priest, the king, or the nobility.
But why may not the practice in question have been simply a consequence of might? It may be a right taken forcibly by the stronger, or it may be a privilege voluntarily given to the chief man as a mark of esteem,—in either case, it depends upon his authority. Indeed, the right of encroaching upon the marital rights of a subject is not commonly restricted to the first night only. Where the chief or the king has the power of life and death, what man can prohibit him from doing his will? “Quite indisputed,” Dr. Holub says, with reference to the Marutse, “is the king’s power to put to death, or to make a slave of any one of his subjects in any way he choses; he may take a man’s wife simply by providing him with another wife as a substitute.”[413] In Dahomey, all women belong to the king, who causes every girl to be brought to him before marriage, and, if he pleases, retains her in the palace.[414] Among the Negroes in Fida, according to Bosman, the captains of the king, who have to supply him with fresh wives, immediately present to him any beautiful virgin they may see; and none of his subjects dare presume to offer objections.[415] In Persia, it was a legal principle that whatever was touched by the king remained immaculate, and that he might go into the harem of any of his subjects.[416] Among the Kukis, “all the women of the village, married or single, are at the pleasure of the rajah,” who is regarded by his people with almost superstitious veneration.[417] The Kalmuck priests, who are not suffered to marry, may, it is said, pass a night with any man’s wife, and this is esteemed a favour by the husband.[418] And in Chamba (probably Cochin China), Marco Polo tells us, no woman was allowed to marry until the king had seen her.[419]
According to Dr. Zimmermann, it is a dogma among many Malays that the rajah has the entire disposal of the wives and children of his subjects.[420] In New Zealand, when a chief desires to take to himself a wife, he fixes his attention upon one and takes her, if need be by force, without consulting her feelings and wishes, or those of any one else.[421] In Tonga, the women of the lower people were at the disposal of the chiefs, who even used to shoot the husbands, if they made resistance;[422] whilst in Congo, as we are told by Mr. Reade, when the king takes a fresh concubine, her husband and all her lovers are put to death.[423]
In the interesting ‘Notes of a Country Clergyman’ in Russkaja Stariná (‘Russian Antiquity’), much light is thrown on the life of Russian landlords before the emancipation of the serfs. Here is what is said of one of them:—“Often N. I—tsch would stroll late in the evening about his village to admire the prosperous condition of his peasants; he would stop at some cottage, look in at the window, and tap on the pane with his finger. This tapping was well known to everybody, and in a moment the best-looking woman of the family went out to him.... Another landlord, whenever he visited his estate, demanded from the manager, immediately after his arrival, a list of all the grown-up girls. Then,” the author continues, “the master took to his service each of the girls for three or four days, and as soon as the list was finished, he went off to another village. This occurred regularly every year.”[424]
Here we have a collection of facts, belonging, as I think, to the same group as the jus primae noctis is of a chief or a priest. And it is obvious that they have nothing to do with “communal marriage.” The privilege accorded to the priest, however, seems, in some cases, to have a purely religious origin. Thus, Egede informs us that the native women of Greenland thought themselves fortunate if an Angekokk, or prophet, honoured them with his caresses; and some husbands even paid him, because they believed that the child of such a holy man could not but be happier and better than others.[425] Von Martius thinks that the right granted to the medicine-man among the Brazilian aborigines is owing to savage ideas of woman’s impurity.[426] And on the coast of Malabar, Hamilton says, the bride was given to the chief priest, “because the first fruits of her nuptials must be a holy oblation to the god she worships.”[427]