THEORIES OF PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 281 



woman herself. Sir John Lubbock expresses the opinion that female 

 coyness is not an adequate cause for the establishment of the form of 

 capture ; and it may be that, taken alone, it does not suffice to ac- 

 count for everything. But there are reasons for thinking it an impor- 

 tant factor. Here are some of them. Crantz tells us concerning: the 

 Esquimaux that, when a damsel is asked in marriage, she 



"directly falls into the greatest apparent consternation, and runs out-of-doors 

 tearing her hunch of hair ; for single women always affect the utmost hashful- 

 ness and aversion to any proposal of marriage, lest they should lose their repu- 

 tation for modesty." 



Like behavior is shown by- Bushmen girls. When 



" a girl has grown up to womanhood without having previously heen hetrothed, 

 her lover must gain her own approbation, as well as that of the parents ; and on 

 this occasion his attentions are received with an affectation of great alarm and 

 disinclination on her part, and with some squabbling on the part of her friends." 



Again, among the Sinai Arabs, says Burckhardt, a bride 



"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 strikes, the more she is applauded ever after 

 by her own companions." During the procession to the husband's camp, " de- 

 cency obliges her to cry and sob most bitterly." 



Of the Muzos, Piedrahita narrates that after agreement with the par- 

 ents was made 



"the bridegroom came to see the bride, and staid three days caressing her, 

 while she replied by beating him with her fists and with sticks. After these 

 three days she got tamer, and cooked his meals." 



In these cases, then, coyness, either real or affected for reputation's 

 sake, causes resistance of the woman herself. In other cases there is 

 joined with this the resistance of her female friends. We read of the 

 Sumatran women that " both the bride and her female relatives make it 

 a point of honor to prevent (or appear to prevent) the bridegroom from 

 obtaining his bride." On the occasion of a marriage among the 

 Araucanians, Smith tells us that "the women spring up en masse, and 

 arming themselves with clubs, stones, and missiles of all kinds, rush to 

 the defense of the distressed maiden. . . . It is a point of honor with the 

 bride to resist and struggle, however willing she may be." And once 

 more we learn from Grieve that when a Kamtchatkan " bridegroom 

 obtains the liberty of seizing his bride, he seeks every opportunity of 

 finding her alone, or in company of a few people, for during this time 

 all the women in the village are obliged to protect her." 



Here we have, I think, proof that one origin of the form of capture 

 is feminine opposition primarily of the woman herself, and second- 

 arily of female friends who naturally sympathize with her. Though 

 the manners of the inferior races do not imply much coyness, yet we 



