Chapter VII: Early Wedding Customs

Curious wedding custom of the Garos, in India—Natural
affection among savages, tested by some of the evidence of
eye-witnesses—Love-stories—Treatment of women not uniformly bad
among savages—Married life—Duty of bashfulness, displayed in
curious manners and notions of the Esquimaux, the Hottentots,
the Hos, the Thlinkeets, the Kirghiz, Kamschadals, the
Bushmen, the Zulus, and the Bedouins—Conventional reserve
between husband and wife—Restrictions on intercourse
between near relations—Kicking and screaming the _proper_
behaviour at weddings—Real disinclination also often a cause
for the employment of real force—The ceremony of capture
affords a bride a real chance of escape from a bridegroom
she dislikes—Mercantile aspect of marriage—Marriages by
capture often voluntary elopements in defeat of parental
contracts, illustrated by customs in India, Afghanistan,
Bokhara—Such marriages legalised by successful elopement and
subsequent settlement with parents—Exogamy and endogamy, how
related—Doubtful origin of exogamy—Its effect in preserving
peace between tribes—Woman-stealing the result of artificial
social customs—Origin of the difference of language between
the sexes among the Caribs—The same phenomenon among the
Zulus—Doubtful evidence of a total absence of marriage
ceremonies 188-238