The peoples among which actual capture is at present practised, and those among which wives are procured by sale or contract, represent two different stages in the development of the institution of marriage, and it is owing to this fact that the symbols used among the latter may be traced to the realities in which they originated.
Of the Bedouins of Mt. Sinai, Burckhardt says that marriage is a matter of sale and purchase, in which the inclination of the girl is disregarded.
The young maid comes home in the evening with the cattle. At a short distance from the camp she is met by the future spouse and a couple of his young friends, and carried off by force to her father’s tent. If she entertains any suspicion of their designs she defends herself with stones, and often inflicts wounds on the young men, even though she does not dislike the lover, for, according to custom, the more she struggles, bites, kicks, cries, and shrieks, the more she is applauded ever after by her own companions.[115]
[115] Quoted by E. J. Wood, _The Wedding Day_, etc., p. 60.
In reference to the Mezeyne Arabs the same writer observes that a similar custom prevailed within the limits of the Sinai Peninsula, but not among the other tribes of that province.
A girl having been wrapped in the Abba at night, is permitted to escape from her tent, and fly into the neighbouring mountains. The bridegroom goes in search of her next day, and remains often many days before he can find her out, while her female friends are apprised of her hiding-place, and furnish her with provisions. If the husband finds her at last (which is sooner or later, according to the impression that he has made upon the girl’s heart), he is bound to consummate the marriage in the open country, and to pass the night with her in the mountains. The next morning the bride goes home to her tent, that she may have some food; but again runs away in the evening and repeats these flights several times, till she finally returns to her tent. She does not go to live in her husband’s tent until she is far advanced in pregnancy; if she does not become pregnant, she may not join her husband till a full year from the wedding-day.[116]
[116] Quoted by E. J. Wood, _The Wedding Day_, etc., p. 60.