denied that the sexual impulse of the male
was sometimes strong enough to lead him to seize a woman wherever
he found her, if he could not get a wife otherwise, but there is no
evidence that capture ever formed a regular or important means of
getting wives.[229]

On the contrary, the evidence points to the view that as soon as for
any reason men ceased to marry with the women of their own blood and
went outside of their immediate families for women, they ordinarily
secured them in a social, not a hostile, way, and from a different
branch of their own group, not, as a rule, from a strange group. In
fact, the regular means of securing a wife other than a woman of one's
own family seems to have been to exchange a woman of one's family for
a woman of a different family.

The Australian male almost invariably obtains his wife or
wives either as the survivor of a married brother, or
in exchange for his sisters, or later on in life for his
daughters. Occasionally also an ancient widow, whom the
rightful heir does not claim, is taken possession of by
some bachelor but for the most part those who have no female
relatives to give in exchange have to go without wives. Girls
become wives at from eight to fourteen years. Males are free
to possess wives after ... attaining the status of young man,
which they do when about eighteen years of age. One often sees
a child of eight the wife of a man of fifty. Females until
married are the property of their father or his heir, and
afterwards of their husband, and have scarcely any rights.
When a man dies his widows devolve on his oldest surviving
brother of the same caste as himself--that is, full brother.
Should a man leave, say two widows, each of whom has a son who
has attained the rank of a young man, then I believe each of
the young men may dispose of his uterine sister and obtain a
wife in exchange for her. But should the deceased father of
the young men have already obtained wives on faith of giving
these daughters in marriage when of suitable age, then the
contract made must be kept. When the father is old and his
sons young men, it happens sometimes that he barters females
at his disposal for wives for them.[230]

Roth also reports[231] that exchange of sisters is one mode of
negotiating marriage; and Haddon says that in the region of Torres
Straits marriage is proposed by the woman