222 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



between men and their mothers-in-law of which modern humor- 

 ists make so much. 



That a similar series of prohibitions should exist, limiting the 

 social relations of the wife with the family of her husband, is 

 what we might expect to find ; the husband's relatives being of 

 the party of the feigned abductor, and so enemies. Among the 

 Calmucks the daughter-in-law must not speak to her father-in- 

 law, nor sit in his presence. In China, the father-in-law, after the 

 wedding-day, never sees the face of his daughter-in-law again ; 

 he never visits her, and, if they chance to meet, he hides himself. 

 With the Ostiaks of Siberia and the Basutos of South Africa the 

 young wife must not look in the face of her father-in-law, and 

 must avoid him as much as possible, till she has borne a child. 

 The Armenian wife must conceal her face from her husband's 

 father and mother. A more archaic form of these varieties is 

 found among the Kaffirs of South Africa, with whom a married 

 woman is cut off from all intercourse, not only with her father- 

 in-law, but with all her husband's male relations in the ascending 

 line. " She is not allowed to pronounce their names, even men- 

 tally ; and whenever the emphatic syllable of either of their names 

 occurs in any other word, she must avoid it, by either substi- 

 tuting an entirely new word, or at least another syllable in its 

 place." * 



This terminates our collection of examples, though we might 

 probably add to those which follow the consummation of the 

 marriage the widely distributed custom which forbids husband 

 and wife to eat together. The numerous cases we have given 

 show how very universal marriage by capture de facto must have 

 been, and also, since it has left such enduring traces, for what a 

 long period of time it must have been practiced. Among our- 

 selves it influenced public opinion until comparatively recent 

 times, for it was not until the reign of Henry VII that the violent 

 seizure of a woman was made a criminal offense, and even then 

 the operation of the statute was limited to the abduction of women 

 possessed of lands and goods. A man might still carry off a girl, 

 provided she was not an heiress ; but in spite of the law and its 

 severe penalties, the abduction of heiresses continued to be a com- 

 mon occurrence, especially in Ireland, down to the close of the 

 last century, and to be regarded by the general public as but a 

 venial offense at most. 



* Maclean, Compendium of Kaffir Laws and Customs. 



