female friends are apt to applaud the exploit.[1] The Mantras of the Malay Peninsula, on the wedding-day, give the bride a start, and then the bridegroom must catch her or forfeit her. The course is sometimes round a ring, but sometimes there is a fair chase into the forest, whence an unwelcome lover may well fail to bring back an unwilling bride.[2] Among the Esquimaux of the last century, the form of bride-lifting was in use, nor was its serious meaning forgotten, for sometimes a Greenlander desirous of a second wife, would simply pounce upon an unprotected female, or with his friends' help carry off a girl from a dance. The form still continues; among the Itiplik tribe it has been recently remarked that there is no marriage ceremony further than that the lad has by main force to carry off the kicking and screaming girl, who plays the Sabine bride as though the marriage were not an arranged affair.[3] In modern China, the capture of the bride is recognized as something more than a form. Should the parents of a betrothed damsel delay unconscionably to fulfil the contract, it is a recognized thing for the husband elect to carry off his bride by main force, and indeed the very threat of this proceeding generally brings the old people to a surrender.[4] The Spartan marriage has lasted in other European districts into modern centuries. In Slavonic countries, though sunk to mere ceremony, it is not forgotten.[5] In Friesland the memory of it is kept up by the "bride-lifter" who lifts the bride and her bridesmaid upon the waggon. As for our own country, it was retained in the marriage customs of mock combats and spear-throwing in Wales and Ireland into the last centuries.[6]
- ↑ Dalton, Kols, in Tr. Eth. Soc., vol. vi. p. 27; see also Shortt, Jeypore, ibid. p. 266.
- ↑ Bourien, ibid., vol. iii. p. 81.
- ↑ Cranz, Grönland, p. 209. Hayes, 'Open Polar Sea;' London, 1867, p. 437.
- ↑ Doolittle, Chinese, vol. i. p. 104.
- ↑ Hanusch, 'Slaw. Mythus;' p, 344.
- ↑ Brand, vol. ii. p. 139, 147; E. J. Wood, 'The Wedding Day in all Ages,' vol. ii. Mr. M'Lennan (see above, p. 281) takes the same view as I have done of the import of the Spartan marriage, which he calls the "form of capture," as indicating previous habit of bride-capture in earnest. He argues from the wide distribution of the form, that the reality was prevalent in early social conditions of the human race. I have added several cases to those mentioned in the first edition of this work, and the whole should be added to Mr. M'Lennan's collection to represent the general evidence of the subject, which is one of much importance in the history of mankind.
