ustralian tribes,
Spencer and Gillen remark: "We have never in any of these central
tribes met with any such thing, and the clubbing part of the
story may be dismissed, so far as the central area of the
continent is concerned. To the casual observer what looks like a
capture (we are, of course, only speaking of these tribes) is in
reality an elopement, in which the woman is an aiding and
abetting party." (_Northern Tribes of Central Australia_. p. 32.)

"The New Zealand method of courtship and matrimony is a most
extraordinary one. A man sees a woman whom he fancies he should
like for a wife; he asks the consent of her father, or, if an
orphan, of her nearest relative, which, if he obtain, he carries
his intended off by force, she resisting with all her strength,
and, as the New Zealand girls are generally fairly robust,
sometimes a dreadful struggle takes place; both are soon stripped
to the skin and it is sometimes the work of hours to remove the
fair prize a hundred yards. It sometimes happens that she secures
her retreat into her father's house, and the lover loses all
chance of ever obtaining her." (A. Earle, _Narratives of
Residence in New Zealand_, 1832, p. 244.)

Among the Eskimos (probably near Smith Sound) "there is no
marriage ceremony further than that the boy is required to carry
off his bride by main force, for even among these blubber-eating
people the woman only saves her modesty by a show of resistance,
although she knows years beforehand that her destiny is sealed
and that she is to become the wife of the man from whose
embraces, when the nuptial day comes, she is obliged by the
inexorable law of public opinion to free herself, if possible, by
kicking and screaming with might and main until she is safely
landed in the hut of her future lord, when she gives up the
combat very cheerfully and takes possession of her new abode. The
betrothal often takes place at a very early period of life and at
very dissimilar ages." Marriage only takes place when the lover
has killed his first seal; this is the test of manhood and
maturity. (J.J. Hayes, _Open Polar Sea_, 1867, p. 432.)

Marriage by "capture" is common in war and raiding in central
Africa. "The women, as a rule," Johnston says, "make no very
great resistance on these occasions. It is almost like playing a