162 UNIVERSALITY OF DEGENERATIVE EVOLUTION 



Marriage ly Capture. Traces of this early form 

 of marriage, which is still to be met with in certain 

 parts of Bulgaria, 1 are exhibited in the nuptial rites 

 and customs of Ukraine, where the ceremonial is 

 quite a museum of reduced institutions. 



Vestiges of what originally was marriage by 

 capture occur too in France and Belgium, and other 

 countries. The nuptial games of Lower Brittany 

 and Chimay have obviously been derived from it. 2 



Marriage ty purchase. The retrogressive evolu- 

 tion of this form of marriage exhibits the following 

 stages : 



1 Th. Volvok, Rites et usuges nuptiaux de V Ukraine (VAnthro- 

 pologie, 1891, p. 169). " In certain parts of Bulgaria (Kustendil), 

 the capture of young girls takes place even in the present day and 

 constitutes a form of marriage (Vlatcheny monny)." 



2 Monseur, Bulletin du Folklore, January and March 1895, 

 Coutumes, p. 1 ; les noces, p. 18. 



" In some villages of Chimay (Hainault), when a young man 

 chooses a bride from a neighbouring village, the young people 

 proceed in cavalcade to the home of the bride. The leader of 

 them presents her with a whip and a large cake crowned with 

 a bouquet. The bride then takes up her position on the door- 

 steps while the bridegroom and his friends pass and repass her 

 at full gallop seeking to dispossess her of the whip with which 

 she lashes at them. All this may be regarded as the last remain- 

 ing phase of marriage by capture, the bridegroom arriving at the 

 dwelling of the bride with a cortege, being more or less figurative 

 of a marauding expedition." 



Baudrillard (in Stances et travaux de I'Acade'mie des sciences 

 morales, Jan. 1884, p. 36) connects the customary nuptial games 

 of Lower Brittany with the primitive, marriage by capture. In 

 these games the bride hides before going to church, and the 

 bridegroom has to search till he finds her. 



