A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. 1 of 3

by George Elliott Howard

[501] Ibid., 110. Cf. the similar conclusion of Bernhöft, "Principien des eur. Familienrechts," ZVR., IX, 392, 393, 394; and Grosse, Die Formen der Familie, 105 ff.

[502] Letourneau, op. cit., 116, 117 ff.

[503] Dargun's classification of peoples, among whom occurs so-called marriage by capture in its various forms, will be found useful (Mutterrecht und Raubehe, 78 ff., 92, 138, 139). They are divided into two major classes:

I. Peoples among whom wife-capture is an essential part of marriage. This class comprehends three grades according to the consent of the guardian (Gewalthaber) of the woman:

1. In the first grade fall peoples among whom wife-capture is customary without any regard to the guardian: East Indians, Slavs, Germans, and various non-Aryan peoples.

2. In the second grade fall peoples among whom it is the custom, after the capture is effected, to compound with the guardian by paying a penalty for the abduction or a price for the woman: including Slavs, Lithuanians, modern Greeks of the Ionian Isles, the Ossetes of the Caucasus, the Germans, and certain non-Aryan peoples.

3. In the third grade are peoples among whom the abduction of the bride, no longer accompanied by actual violence, is a legal requirement, though preceded by consent of the guardian. Besides non-Aryan examples, here are found the Romans, ancient Greeks, Slavs, possibly the Germans.

II. Peoples among whom wife-capture exists as a survival in merely symbolical form and without legal significance. Examples among nearly all peoples in every stage of advancement.

Cf. the similar classification of Post, Familienrecht, 139, 140.

[504] On the form of capture, see Dargun, op. cit., 86-92, 102 ff., 111 ff.; Hellwald, op. cit., 286-305; Grosse, Die Formen der Familie, 105 ff.; Schroeder, Hochzeitsbräuche, 14 ff.; Kohler, "Studien," ZVR., V, 334 ff.; and for examples, Kohler's papers in ZVR., VII, 371 (New Guinea); VI, 333, 339, 399 (Roumania); IX, 325 (Bengal); XI, 57 (Azteks), 436 (Kamerun); Rehme, "Das Recht der Amaxosa," ZVR., X, 38; Letourneau, op. cit., 117-29; McLennan, op. cit., I, 9-21; Westermarck, op. cit., 382-90; Post, Geschlechtsgenossenschaft, 54 ff.; Familienrecht, 137-57; Starcke, Primitive Family, 212 ff., 262; and illustrations in Schmidt, Hochzeiten in Thüringen, 33, 36, 40; Wood, Wedding Day, 35, 46, 59, 68, 118 ff., 121-44, passim; and Düringsfeld, Hochzeitsbuch, passim.