The simulated anger and sham violence connected with marriage ceremonies among friendly peoples, which are so far removed from a time when actual capture was practised as to be ignorant of the true significance of these symbols, show the extent to which marriage is based on the idea of force on the one side and unwilling submission on the other.
As the numerous Arabian clans in the time of Mohammed represented the varying stages of advancement from the second period of barbarism to civilization, the constitution of Arab society at that time affords an excellent opportunity for observing the growth of the institution of marriage, and the various processes by which the former supremacy of women was overthrown.
One of the principal objects of war at the time of the Prophet is said to have been the capture of women for wives, a practice which was recognized as lawful. Under Islam the custom of forcibly carrying off women for wives was universal and was carried on side by side with the system of marriage by contract or sale. The position of the captured woman, however, differed somewhat from that of the purchased wife. The former, having been forcibly carried away from her home, lost the protection of her friends, while the purchased wife, although she relinquished the authority which had formerly been exercised by women within the gens, and although she surrendered her person to her “lord,” did not forfeit her right to the protection of her own family in case of abuse.
Although in Arabia, under the form of marriage by sale or contract, the wife lost the right to the control of property belonging to her own gens, she did not, as in Rome, forfeit her claim to the protection of her kindred. If she received ill treatment within the home of her husband, her relatives, who were still her natural protectors, were bound to redress her wrongs. In Rome, on the contrary, under a system representing a later stage in the development of marriage, the wife was adopted into the stock of her husband whose rights over her person were supreme, at the same time that her kindred renounced the right to interfere in her behalf.
It is to the fact, that in early Arabia the wife never relinquished her hold upon her own relations, that we are to look for an explanation of the high social position of Arabian women. We are assured that it is “an old Arab sentiment, and not Moslem,” that women are entitled to the highest respect, and that as mothers of the tribe they “are its most sacred trust.”
