The Sexes in Science and History / An inquiry into the dogma of woman's inferiority to man

by Eliza Burt Gamble

Meantime, we observe that, whenever we discover symbolical forms, we are justified in inferring that in the past life of the people employing them, there were corresponding realities; and if, among the primitive races which we examine, we find such realities as might naturally pass into such forms on an advance taking place in civility, then we may safely conclude (keeping within the conditions of a sound inference) that what these now are, those employing the symbols once were.[113]

Among primitive tribes, the area controlled by each was small, therefore vigilance in maintaining their possessions was one of their chief duties, and hostility to surrounding tribes a natural condition. Subsequently, however, when friendly relations began to be established with hitherto hostile tribes, they are found entering into negotiations to furnish each other with wives. It was at this time that marriage by sale or contract was instituted, an arrangement by which the elder men in the tribe could be accommodated with foreign wives, at the same time that their own daughters and sisters became to them a source of revenue.

In Uganda many men obtain wives by exchanging daughters and sisters with each other. Of this practice C. Staniland Wake says:

This is not an unusual mode of proceeding in different parts of the world. The perpetuation of the monopoly of women enjoyed to a great extent by the older men of the tribe among the Australians is, according to Mr. Howitt, encouraged by those having sisters or daughters to exchange with each other for wives.[114]

Not unfrequently actual capture is practised side by side with fiction—violent seizure being in active operation among the same tribes at the same time with the symbol, the frequency of actual violence depending partly on the extent to which hostility prevails between the tribes, and partly on the degree of “uniformity established by usage in the prices paid for wives.” Among certain tribes, when a dispute arises concerning the price to be paid for a bride, if the man is able to seize the woman and carry her off to his tent, the law recognizes her as his wife and nothing is left for the relations to do in the matter but to accept his terms as to the price.

The peoples among which actual capture is at present practised, and those among which wives are procured by sale or contract, represent two different stages in the development of the institution of marriage, and it is owing to this fact that the symbols used among the latter may be traced to the realities in which they originated.

Of the Bedouins of Mt. Sinai, Burckhardt says that marriage is a matter of sale and purchase, in which the inclination of the girl is disregarded.

The young maid comes home in the evening with the cattle. At a short distance from the camp she is met by the future spouse and a couple of his young friends, and carried off by force to her father’s tent. If she entertains any suspicion of their designs she defends herself with stones, and often inflicts wounds on the young men, even though she does not dislike the lover, for, according to custom, the more she struggles, bites, kicks, cries, and shrieks, the more she is applauded ever after by her own companions.[115]

In reference to the Mezeyne Arabs the same writer observes that a similar custom prevailed within the limits of the Sinai Peninsula, but not among the other tribes of that province.

A girl having been wrapped in the Abba at night, is permitted to escape from her tent, and fly into the neighbouring mountains. The bridegroom goes in search of her next day, and remains often many days before he can find her out, while her female friends are apprised of her hiding-place, and furnish her with provisions. If the husband finds her at last (which is sooner or later, according to the impression that he has made upon the girl’s heart), he is bound to consummate the marriage in the open country, and to pass the night with her in the mountains. The next morning the bride goes home to her tent, that she may have some food; but again runs away in the evening and repeats these flights several times, till she finally returns to her tent. She does not go to live in her husband’s tent until she is far advanced in pregnancy; if she does not become pregnant, she may not join her husband till a full year from the wedding-day.[116]