[829] Divorce is rare among the Muskogi and Natchez (Florida-Dakota), the Caribs, the aborigines of Paraguay and Nicaragua, and the Eskimo: Friedrichs, loc. cit.; Westermarck, Human Marriage, 524. Cf. Powers, Tribes of Cal., 239 (Wintun); Dorsey, Siouan Sociology, 243 (rare in the better class).
[830] For China see Hellwald, Die mensch. Familie, 380, 381; Tscheng-ki-Tong, China und die Chinesen, 55; Wake, Marriage and Kinship, 232; Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, I, 106, 107; Medhurst, in Trans. Royal As. Soc., China Branch, IV, 27: Westermarck, op. cit., 525. For Japan see Wake, op. cit., 233; Westermarck, op. cit., 525; and for the Aztecs, Bancroft, Native Races, II, 263-65; Waitz, Anthropologie, IV, 132.
[831] Cf. the remarks of Wake, op. cit., 218; and compare Ratzel, Hist. of Mankind, II, 434 (Zulus); and Sarasin, Die Weddas von Ceylon, I, 458, 468, 469.
[832] Westermarck, op. cit., 531.
[833] Westermarck, op. cit., 19, gives examples.
[834] Westermarck, op. cit., 531, and the authorities cited in the notes. The same influence was a check upon divorce in Athens: Letourneau, op. cit., 304.
[835] On the conservative influence of wife-purchase see Westermarck, op. cit., 532, 535, 536; and for curious and instructive illustrations of the effects of purchase read especially the detailed account of the law of divorce among the Kabyles of Algiers in Letourneau, op. cit., 292-96. The man has the sole right of divorce. As a condition of setting the woman free he may demand the lefdi, or price of redemption, and fix such other terms as he pleases; as that the lefdi shall be double or triple, if she marry such or such a man. The sum may thus be so large as to amount to a prohibition of marriage. On the other hand, a liberal price may be an inducement to free the woman. Among some of these tribes the amount of the lefdi is fixed by law, usually at a sum higher than the thâmanth, or purchase price of a virgin or a widow, so as by working upon the cupidity of the husband to induce him to pronounce the triple formula and thus suffer the woman to contract a new marriage. The children under all circumstances follow the father.
[836] Mason, Woman's Share in Primitive Culture, 229, 230.
[837] Brunner, Rechtsgeschichte, I, 72, 73, and the sources there cited. The former existence of wife-capture among the Germans is also held by Siegel, Rechtsgeschichte, 450; Heusler, Institutionen, II, 280; Schulenburg, Die Spuren des Brautraubes, 10 ff.: Bernhöft, Frauenleben, 8 ff.; Lamprecht, Deutsche Geschichte, 97 ff., 107 ff.; Sehling Unterscheidung der Verlöbnisse, 29; Opet, Die erbrechtliche Stellung der Weiber, 16 ff.; Colberg, Ueber das Ehehinderniss der Entführung (Leipzig, 1869), 25.
[838] Dargun, Mutterrecht und Raubehe, 111-25, critically examines these passages. The fact that a marriage effected by rape or abduction is often treated as valid, even when the purchase price is not paid, is especially urged as evidence of the survival of customary wife-capture. Thus in Æthelberht, 82, 83; Ælf., 8; Æthelred, VI, 26, 39: Schmid, Gesetze, 9, 75, 231, 301, a penalty is exacted in such cases, though the marriage appears to be valid. But is it not simpler to explain this on grounds still familiar to all? The suggestion of the text seems to be sustained by the materials collected by Weinhold, Deutsche Frauen, I, 308-15. Cf. Jeaffreson, Brides and Bridals, I, 12-31.