10 MARRIAGE AND HEREDITY 



gonia, the Malay Archipelago, and in North-eastern 

 Asia. The girl in these cases is not put upon horse- 

 back, but hides or runs, or otherwise asserts her free- 

 dom of choice in the matter of a husband. Among 

 the blacks of New Zealand the husband has to remove 

 his bride by force. If she dislikes him, the task is a 

 tremendous one ; it is the work of hours dragging her 

 a hundred yards. But if she has a partiality for her 

 captor, her resistance is easily overcome. The feigned 

 capture of brides existed in Wales until the last cen- 

 tury, the bridegroom's friends and the bride's engaging 

 in a mock scuffle. This ceremony is witnessed also 

 among tribes inhabiting the plains of India.^ 



The process of transition from the primitive forms 

 of marriage to that practised by Christian communities 

 is a very slow and gradual one. Its earlier stages we 

 can only guess. We may suppose that in tribes living 

 promiscuously men would prefer certain women 

 to others, and would try to hold them against aU 



^ The foregoing and other singular maniage customs are described 

 in MacLennan's Primitive Marriage; Sir J. Lubbock's Origin of 

 Civilisation; Huth's Marriage of Near Kin ; Wilkinson's Ancient 

 Egyptians ; Banerjee's Hindu Law of Marriage ; Hepworth Dixon'a 

 New America; Lane's Modern EgyjJtians; Darwin's Descent of Man ; 

 and Karnes's History of Man. Gibbon and Herodotus also furnish 

 examples. 



