us
atmosphere.[331]

+178+. Gradually greater freedom of choice was allowed men and women,
and the ceremonies of marriage became more elaborate. Certain of these
seem intended to secure the complete union of husband and wife; such,
for example, are the customs of eating together, of the inoculation of
each party with the blood of the other or with some bodily part of the
other, and the giving of presents by each to the other. All these rest
on the conception that union between two persons is effected by each
taking something that belongs to the other; each thus acquires something
of the other's personality. This is a scientific biological idea; and
though it had its origin doubtless in some very crude notion of life, it
has maintained itself in one form or another up to the present time.

+179+. Among many communities the custom is for the bride to hide
herself and to be pursued and taken by the bridegroom. This custom,
again, is in its origin obscure. Almost certainly it does not point to
original marriage by capture, for of such a customary method of
acquiring wives there is no trace in savage communities (though in
particular cases women may have been captured and married). Possibly it
reflects merely the coyness of the woman; or it may be simply a festive
procedure, an occasion of fun for the young people, as indeed a wedding
now commonly is. In many cases, however, it appears to represent the
transference of the woman from her own tribe to that of her husband.
Though she was thus transferred bodily and brought into civic relations
with the latter, certain taboos, arising from her original tribal
position, often clung to her. The right to dwell in her own house in her
own tribe, and to receive there her foreign husband, belongs to a
relatively late social stage.[332]

+180+. The defloration of the woman before marriage is rather a
preparation for marriage than a marriage ceremony; or it may represent
the social right of the elders of the tribe and the relatives of the
bride to the possession of her, perhaps symbolizing her entrance into a
family.[333] The hypothesis that such a custom points to primitive
promiscuity is ably combated by Westermarck, and is involved in great
difficulties; it is, however, maintained by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen
in their two works on Australian tribes, whose customs seem to them to
be inexplicable except on the supposition of primitive promiscuity, in
spite of Westermarck's argument