In Australia, among the North American Indians, the tribes of the Amazon and the Orinoco, in Hindustan and Afghanistan, marriage by actual capture is still practised, and many of the details connected with the _modus operandi_ have been given by various writers. The following from Sir George Gray, relative to this form of marriage as it exists at the present time among some of the native Australian tribes, is quoted by Mr. J. F. McLennan.
Although a woman give no encouragement to her admirers,
many plots are laid to carry her off, and in the encounters which result from these, she is almost certain to receive some violent injury, for each of the combatants orders her to follow him, and in the event of her refusing, throws a spear at her. The early life of a young woman at all celebrated for beauty is generally one continued series of captivity to different masters, of ghastly wounds, of wanderings in strange families, of rapid flights, of bad treatment from other females, amongst whom she is brought a stranger by her captor; and rarely do you see a form of unusual grace and elegance, but it is marked and scarred by the furrows of old wounds; and many a female thus wanders several hundred miles from the home of her infancy, being carried off successively to distant and more distant points.[111]
[111] _Studies in Ancient History_, p. 40.
In an account describing the search for wives by the natives of Sydney, Collins says:
The poor wretch is stolen upon in the absence of her protectors. Being first stupefied with blows, inflicted with clubs or wooden swords, on the head, back, and shoulders, every one of which is followed by a stream of blood, she is then dragged through the woods by one arm, with a perseverance and violence that it might be supposed would displace it from its socket. This outrage is not resented by the relations of the female, who only retaliate by a similar outrage when they find an opportunity. This is so constantly the practice among them that even the children make it a play game, or exercise.[112]
[112] Quoted by Sir J. Lubbock, _Origin of Civilization_, p. 108.
By various travellers and explorers, the fact has been observed that certain symbols representing force in their marriage ceremonies are in use among nearly if not all extant tribes which have reached a certain stage of growth. To such an extent, in an earlier age, has the forcible carrying-off of women prevailed, that among most of these tribes a valid marriage may not be consummated without the appearance of force in the nuptial ceremonies. In reference to these symbols, we have the following passage from Mr. McLennan: