'I will be master of what is mine own. 8he is my goods, my chattels ; she is my house, My household stuff, my tield, my barn, My horse, my ox, my ass, my aiiythiug.' ''
Still more peculiar and odd are tbo ceremonies of courtship and marriage in the mountainous districts of Eastern Hungary, In the fall of the year a fair is held there of marriageable young men and women. From all quarters long trains of chariots wind their way to the ])lain of Kalinosa. They are laden with household furniture, and followed by tlie cattle of the family. In the midst of these goods may be seen the young lady whom her family has brought to seek a husband at the fair. She is dressed in her best, with brilliant silk scarf and scarlet petticoat. These caravans fake up their po- sition one after the other on one side of the plain, while on the other side a cavalcade of young men apprtiaches and deploys along the whole luie. The men— young
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Wallacliiar.s, for the most part — are dressed in their best goat-skins, and make what show of horsemanship they can. After both parties have taken up their respective quarters opposite each other, the fathers step forward and begin to negotiate marriages for their children. The questions asked on these occasions are, we fear, of a somewliat sordid character. " How many bullocl<s '?" "How much money?" "Your daughter's furniture looks rather old ; that chest of drawers does not shut properlj'. I must find something better than that for my son." Such would doubtless be a correct report of the conver- sations held in this primitive, if not poetical Arcadia, previous to clinching the matrimonial bargain. The business is, however, carried out with a promptitude equal to its frankness. As soon as the parents are agreed, a priest, who is always ready at hand, is sum- moned. He chants a hymn and gives his benediction, the bride then kisses her parents, mounts the chariot, and starts for some imknown village with a husband whiim she has never seen before, the furniture and cat- tle which her parents have allowed her as a marriage- portion following in the rear.
5. Mari-iage by Capture. — IMarriage by purchase, how- ever, is by no means the most usual -way of the savage to secure a help-meet for himself. Perhaps the general mode by which rude nations enter into the marital rela- tion is that of capture. In the opinion of Lubbock, the first state of individual marriage was brought about by capture, and, if he chose to treat of this practice as con- fined to rude nations, we can see no reason to disagree with him that man came to claim for his sole personal benefit the female he secured from the conquered. In- deed, such a practice finds a counterpart not only among the pagan nations, but is related of even in the O.-T. Scriptures (Deut. xx, 10-1-1). Our readers must not, however, be led to believe that among savage races marriage by capture means the procuring of a wife l)y hostility. Many savages, indeed, never secure their fe- male companions except by capture, though they be of the same tribe to which they themselves belong. In- deed, while there are many rude nations that do not tolerate anything else but eiuhr/ami/, i. e. intertribal marriage, many others, perhaps the majority, permit only exogamy., i. e. marriage without the tribe. (See this head below.) Nor does it at aU follow that all ex- ogamous marriages do away with communism. It is simply a step in the right direction, and in many in- stances has perhaps been instrumental in bringing about individual marriage relations. There is certainly no symbol more widespread, nor more varied in its forms, tlian that of capture in marriage ceremonies. In many cases feigned theft is necessary to the validity of the marriage. For the Hindu such a marriage form is prescribed in the Sudras (Lassen, Indische Studien, p. 3'25), and in the Institutes of Manu marriage by capture is enumerated among " the eight forms of the nuptial ceremony used by the four classes" (chap, iii, 33, Jones r. Ilougliton). " In the description of this marriage, call- ed Kacshasa, we have the exact prototype of the Koman and Si)artan forms, in a code of laws a thousand years older than our asra" {Nat. Qu. Bet: June, 1872, p. 89).
The practice of capture is found in great perfection among the American Indians, existing everywhere throughout the savage races of South America, but more particularly in the regions of the Oruioco and the Ama- zon. The Fucgians have the practice as well as the fic- tion of capture. The Horse Indians of Patagonia are commonly at war with each other, or with the Canoe Indians, victory on either side resulting in the capture of \vomen and slaughter of men. The Oens, or Coin men, are more systematic, for every year, at the time of ?-ed, leaf, they are said to make excursions from the mountains in the north to ydunder from the Fiiegians their women, dogs, and arms (^I'Lennan, Prim. Mar- riage, p. Gl). The tribes of the Amazon and the Orinoco are in a state of constant warfare, and alternately rich and poor in women. Mr. Bates found the Jlanaos on